Transcending the Language Barrier

Norma Hannigan’s flawless Spanish comes in quite handy in her role as Assistant Professor of Clinical Nursing at CUSON, whether she’s facilitating acase study Webinar between Columbia nursing students and the La Romana clinic in the Dominican Republic, or accompanying students to the same clinic for their clinical hours.     

And she recently translated English research documents into Spanish for a study on the effect of laughter on blood sugar levels and other factors among Spanish-speaking diabetes patients.

But she is not a native speaker, and she didn’t major in the language as an undergrad. Her only encounter with Spanish growing up was the one class she took in high school.

Hannigan became fluent in the 1980’s as a Peace Corps volunteer after receiving her BSN at Hunter College – because she wanted to be able to communicate with someone other than her husband—who had travelled with her to Marchigue, Chile also as a volunteer.

In Marchigue, Hannigan instructed doctors, nurses and dentists how to educate other health care workers and patients about the major health problems in the region including malnutrition, chronic intestinal parasite infections and Chagas disease—a malady caused by  insects bites and one of the major health problems afflicting South America.
After returning to the US, she got an MPH at Hunter College.

“It was then that I realized that there were options for working as nurse in settings other than a hospital,” said Hannigan.

Since then, she has worked with Spanish speaking populations, primarily undocumented immigrants in community health centers.

“Immigrants encounter so many problems, and I don’t want communicating with their healthcare provider to be another one,” said Hannigan.

Working as a nurse practitioner in a clinic in Laredo Texas, along the Mexican border for seven years, she discovered patterns in the health problems of her patients—primarily truck drivers-- including obesity, blood clots, depression, and sexually transmitted infections. Since 2003, she has continued helping this population via her Health and Happiness column for Ten Four Magazine, a publication aimed at truck drivers.

Hannigan was recently named interim co-director of the WHO Collaborating Center, along with Elaine Larson, associate dean for research. The Center is one component of the global health activities at the School of Nursing.

When asked if she has any advice for students who want to gain international experience, she emphatically advises them to join the Peace Corps.

“The experiences are so varied and it’s a remarkable opportunity to do something for someone else in the world, and at the same time, gain so much from being exposed to different cultures, and different languages,” said Hannigan. “It really pushed me to go outside of my comfort zone, to challenge myself. I did things I never thought I was capable of doing.”