On nurses

The beautiful Thai nurses with the little headpieces and crisp uniforms of terribly uncomfortable looking polyester generally flit about like a flock of sparrows patrolling a city sidewalk, happily chirruping from bed to bed, duty to duty. But rather than the flitting transience of a little bird, they almost universally move with the cocksure swagger of an athlete returning to the bench after a good play, always with the happy chirruping and swirls of laughter.
It's where the American starts to have a problem--the Thai work ethic is simply tuned to a different calibre, and where I would expect a quiet, somber atmosphere, there's the steady background of giggles and wheedling and needling. It's not that they're slacking or accomplishing less, it's just the Thai manner.

From what I can tell, the common practice is for a whole gaggle of family to be present when someone is admitted to the hospital, and for the first while, one of the prim and crisp nurses whips milling herd of cats into an organized team of caregivers. Rather than flitting from bed to bed, hands and attention lighting on whatever happens to be of present interest, she plants herself at the scene of greatest action and calls orders to the swirl of relatives. In this manner, the team of half a dozen nurses provides excellent care for 40 patients--whip the concerned family into shape while taking care of other matters.
And that's when the display turns truly impressive.

Every once in a while, a hard patient comes in--the one screaming and thrashing, or dead still while monitors do the screaming. That's when the full flock descends on the gurney in an amazingly silent display.
We have our medical dramas on TV and glorify the intense, barked commands of the ER--a situation antithetical to anything in Thailand.
But when a serious case comes in, the swaggers snap into piston steps, the hands move with robotic precision, and the chirruping ceases. The team moves with the intensity, grace, and communication of passionate tango dancers, every reach or grab, need or request, every motion or thought met halfway through by its fulfillment or counterpart. And the silence lasts as long as it needs to, even as one of the nurses breaks from the flock to attend to other matters, immediately back in the chirrupy smile mode.
Then the patient stabilizes and flock disperses and immediately returns to flitting about with happy chirrups, the intensity completely dissolved and the world back to play.

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