Our international team - New Contact Person for Polish speaking Patients

At the Institut Chiari & Siringomielia & Escoliosis de Barcelona we are very aware that for our patients it is important to be able to express their concerns as freely as possible. Since its foundation, a team of international patient care was built in order to support our medical team in communicating with patients of any language or nationality. More on the topic of cultural mediation in this Blog post here.

Today we want to introduce you to our collegue Nina Piorkowska.

Polish speaking patients can count on their new contact person since July 2016 to look after them from the first email contact, to the first consultation in person, the surgical treatment and during all of the post-operative follow up process, acting as a bridge between the patients and the medical specialists of the Institut Chiari. 

Nina, who is originally from Poland, holds a degree in Hispanic Studies. She moved to Spain for one semester in 2010 to study at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at Cáceres University. She tells us that it was then that she fell in love with our country, its culture, food and landscapes. In 2014 she decided to move to Spain to live in Cáceres for a year and a half and later moved to Barcelona, where she is currently at home.

Her education allows her to respond with agility to the need of a job that requires amongst other things proficiency in different languages and the capability to move in between very different cultures, on top of the translation of medical documentation. 

Nina enjoys being able to help the patients and having the opportunity to learn something new every day. She sees herself as a empathetic, smiley, optimistic and close person, always trying to help our where she can. In her free time, she enjoys a good book, photography, the movies, long walks and travelling to discover new places and dreams with one day having a dog, a German shepherd.

She is well integrated in her adoptive home, without forgetting her roots. Nina is able to mediate between her fellow countrymen’s reserved character, for example they do not usually embrace with a kiss to say hello except for people they are very close to, and the extrovert Mediterranean type.

We wish Nina a record of growth and learning alongside the Polish patients, encouraging a better knowledge of the possible application of the treatment offered at the Institut Chiari.