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You're listening to The Nocturnous Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman.

The ER in New York City can sometimes feel like the Tower of Babel.

Both the patients and the people taking care of them arrive from all different backgrounds and often speak very different languages, either literally or metaphorically.

Today's guest, Dr. Rachel Koalski, navigates the ER daily as a pediatric emergency doctor.

A three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize in Fiction

and winner of the inaugural New England Journal of Medicine Fiction Contest,

Rachel's writing brings the hospital alive in such a fresh and magical way.

Today we'll be discussing her short story, The Delivery Boy, which shows us the ER through

the eyes of a young boy from Guatemala, as well as the team of clinicians who care for him.

Rachel's work has appeared in publications like the Missouri Review, the Atticus Review, and

the Intima.

She teaches Health Humanities at Wild Cornell Medicine, and in our conversation

here today, we talk about the scrupulous research that she did to put together this piece,

as well as what is lost and what is gained when things get lost in translation.

Take a listen to Rachel, reading a passage from her story, The Delivery Boy.

Alta Gracia, the Mexican intern who had been educated in the United States, Tuesday, 8.30 p.m.

The trouble with English speakers was that they always made you wait for the noun. The girl was

having an unprovoked first time a febrile seizure, but by the time Iris got to seizure, precious

...