Medical Spanish Programs and Courses

In the 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” Butch and Sundance and Etta moved to Bolivia and were unsuccessful in robbing a bank because they couldn’t give instructions in Spanish. For example, “Raise your hands” and Back against the wall” and Give me the money” and Where’s the safe? Open it.” Etta teaches them phonetic Spanish so they could give the instructions during their next bank robbery, but they didn’t practice saying the phrases aloud. And, Etta reminds them that their “line of work requires a specialized vocabulary”.

There are many occupational Spanish programs and courses in the U.S.. The most common are legal, medical, and business. This article will describe several programs and courses of medical Spanish which I have connections with. They are offered by college departments of Spanish, schools of nursing, and the private companies that offer community education courses on college campuses.

Command Spanish provides occupational Spanish language training materials and programs for the workplace. These classes require no prior knowledge of Spanish. They try to eliminate grammar instruction. Beginners use a phonetic system to allow immediate control of Spanish pronunciation. One-way communication techniques are used in order to give commands and statements that require only a “yes” or “no’ response or a “screen question” that requires only a plausible response.

At Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas Command Spanish is offered as continuing education. This CE program is called “Survival Spanish in the Workplace.” The instructor lived and was educated in the United States and Mexico and trained by Command Spanish. Classes can be offered on campus or any location that has necessary facilities, such as a computer, a projector, a white board, chairs and tables. Students need only a pencil or pen to make notations in a manual which includes 2 CDs. The instruction includes a medical vocabulary and controlled situations and choral response and modeling and role-playing and situation response. You can read more about the CE program at TWU at www.twu.edu/ce/Survival-Spanish.asp and Command Spanish at www.commandspanish.com.

The University of Texas at Austin was the first university to require medical Spanish in the nursing program. This required course instituted by the UT School of Nursing is titled “Spanish for Health Care Professional.” This course also focuses on conversational Spanish. All class activities and course materials are linked to nursing practice. This course will help nurse to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients. Nursing students will learn to converse in Spanish using medically related expressions. This approach will enable students to articulate and respond to patient concerns and be able to conduct basic interviews in Spanish. Students will also learn cultural and social factors that influence practitioner-patient communication with Latinos.

The textbook used in the UT School of Nursing program is titled “An Introduction to Spanish for Health Care Workers: Communication and Culture.” This textbook is designed for students with little or no formal background in Spanish. It uses readings, exercises, interactive activities, Spanish medical vocabulary, and colloquial terms needed most by health care professionals. And, the textbook contains cultural notes that explain customs and communicative styles of Latinos. In the new third edition there is a DVD video featuring interactions between a family and health care providers. There is a companion Web site at yalebooks.com/medicalspanish which provides self-correcting quizzes and links to medical and language sites.

Along with the textbook the other course materials consist of children’s books, articles about Latinos and health care, a Web site, and dialogs. The chapters of the textbook are based on health and medical themes and these themes are linked to the children’s books such as “My body mi cuerpo” by Rosa-Mendoza because of its illustrations and repetitive use of the language. Each chapter has dialogs related to tasks that nurses typically perform. You can read more about the text at http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300124262

The School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Austin also offers a study abroad course in Guadalajara, Mexico titled “Spanish for Health Care Professionals.” This program offers students the opportunity to practice Spanish in clinical settings. The first of the two courses is Independent Study of Nursing along with a Spanish language course. Students will take placement test to be registered in one of ten levels of Spanish instruction. In addition to the Spanish language instruction students will do research and make tours of clinics and hospitals. In the second course, “Spanish for Health Care Professionals”, students will learn vocabulary and phrases for health care settings. Although the students will not perform nursing procedures, they will observe patients in clinical settings, explore and research community resources for health, learn about Mexico’s system for health care, and examine social and cultural beliefs of Latinos.

The department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin offers a course for pre-medicine students. The title of the course is “Spanish for Health Care Professionals/Pre-Med.” This course is designed to build fluency in both written and spoken Spanish so that the future health care professional can communicate effectively with the Spanish-speaking patient who doesn’t speak English. The primary goal of this course is advanced oral proficiency. The prime objectives of the course are efficiency and clear diction. All assignments will involve translation, scholarly reading and writing in order to build vocabulary and improve reading comprehension and above all improve grammar usage. In order to develop professional speaking and writing skills the students will be given assignments that are in line with patient care. To learn more about oral proficiency take a look at http://www.laits.utexas.edu/spe/ These Spanish proficiency exercises were developed by Dr Orlando Kelm who also developed the medical Spanish program, the first in the nation, for the School of Nursing at the University Of Texas at Austin.

The textbook for this Spanish for Pre-meds course is titled “A Su Salud: Spanish for Health professionals.” The textbook is part of a multimedia package that includes the textbook and 2 DVDs and a CD-ROM and video clips to work with vocabulary and grammar and speaking and understanding and reading and writing skills. The DVDs contain a 96 minute telenovela drama so students can hear authentic Spanish spoken by native speakers in a variety of accents and learn more about the culture of their Hispanic patients.

In addition to improving and practicing the four language skills using the multimedia package, students will listen to medical tutorials and read medical literature and acquire a select medical vocabulary and construct phrases and design questions to ask patients. Students will use this medical vocabulary and phrases and questions to write an original script of a dialogue between doctor and patient. Students will also use academic Spanish to write essays relevant to medical topics and short book and movie reviews of prominent medical issues and current events that affect the medical community. This program is compatible with Blackboard and WebCT. Ancilliary materials are available at yalepress.yale.edu/salud. This multimedia package was developed by health science professionals and Spanish professors at the University of North Carolina (http://salud.unc.edu ).
The University of Texas Pan-American in Edinburg, Texas has created the first academic minor in Medical Spanish designed specifically for heritage language learners of Spanish. The instructional program aims to develop the skill sets of medical interpreting and translation and medical terminology and patient interviewing skills that future health care providers can use to improve communication with Spanish speaking patients. The curriculum is designed to raise awareness about the language issues that intersect with access to health care among Spanish speaking patients. These students will experience evidence-based learning experiences at two local community health centers. The aim is to develop a leadership for the health care professions that will increase access to health care services for Latino patients and engender excellence in the quality of services and make a positive impact on the health outcomes Latino populations.

The course Intermediate Spanish for Health professions students will improve their language skills in two different ways. They will practice the art of medical interpreting and study medical terminology in Spanish. Their general proficiency in conversational Spanish will improve with a systematic study of Spanish words and grammar. By reading cultural and scientific texts students will gain an awareness of the profound impact that language barriers play in the health of the Spanish-speaking linguistic minority in the United States. The course bibliography includes the Merck manual, a family medical encyclopedia and the PAHO’s Health in the Americas. By the end of the semester students will have at least an advanced low proficiency in conversational Spanish, be able to interpret clinical encounters, understand the basic terminology of anatomy, physiology and the structure of words including tense, mood and aspect, and have an understanding of the primary public health concerns related to language barriers and limited English proficiency. This course is also a multi-platform course that uses online instructional tools. UTPA uses the Blackboard interface for its online courses. For more information about this course and the powerpoint presentations, please go to the webpage http://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/daa_home/coah_home/mod_lalit/medspan_home/teachers_home/SPAN2317_home.

The Spanish department of the University of Texas Pan-American also offers a senior seminar Spanish 4348 Sociolinguistics and Latino Health. This seminar examines the relationship between language, health care, and health among Spanish speakers in the United States. Since limited English proficiency affects the access to health information this course examines measures in place to improve the transmission of health information across language boundaries. You can read about this course and view the powerpoint presentations at http://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/daa_home/coah_home/mod_lalit/medspan_home/teachers_home/SPAN4348_home. By the end of the semester students of the senior seminar Spanish 4348 will be required to understand the major language issues that arise in health service delivery and the impact of language diversity on the health status of the Spanish speaking minority in the United States. Students must also understand the protections and entitlements afforded to minority language speakers in the U.S. and understand the major initiatives to improve health services for LEP (limited English proficient) patients.

This course is a combined lecture and study group format and it will use online instructional technologies. Each group will explore one illness or condition that affects the Latino community. They will provide a synopsis of the biology and etiology of the illness or condition in Spanish, the epidemiology of the illness or condition, the availability of information on the illness or condition in Spanish, a survey of bilingual providers in the area that treat the illness or condition, and an assessment of the impact of information availability in Spanish on the prevalence of the illness or condition within the Spanish speaking community in the Rio Grande Valley.

The two textbooks used in this course are part of the Mexican American Experience cluster of modular texts that deal with a single topic concerning the Mexican American population. The titles used in this course are “Mexican Americans and Health: !Sana, Sana!” by Adela de la Torre and Antonio Estrada and “Mexican Americans and Language: Del dicho al hecho” by Glenn Martinez. Dr Martinez is the project manager of the Medical Spanish for Heritage Learners program at the University of Texas Pan-American located in Edinburg, Texas. For more information about this program and contact information about Dr Glenn Martinez, click the link
http://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/daa_home/coah_home/mod_lalit/medspan_home/contactus.

These medical Spanish programs and courses help the future health care professional to offer better service to patients. In addition to a textbook or workbook they all use today’s technology. Some courses emphasize grammar. Others require no previous knowledge of Spanish and little emphasis on grammar. One course teaches the learner how to get a one or two word response from the patient. Some of the courses teach grammar and the four language skills in order to have a conversation with the patient. And, all the programs and courses teach the specialized vocabulary of medical Spanish.

James Phillips
South Texas College
Email: phillips@southtexascollege.edu