I'm looking for a way to learn medical spanish during a 4 week elective. Any recommendations? It would need to have clinic time and class time since I haven't spoken spanish since high school. I'd prefer something abroad since I'll learn more if I can't talk to anyone (or almost anyone) in English.

my class was recently e-mailed about a rotation available in costa rica for medical spanish--I haven't looked into it myself, but the website was http://www.ihcai.org/. good luck--

I will be a MS-1 in fall 2006...so I'm not so informed. But I've read about the Child Family Health International electives (designed for med students as well). They have multiple rotation opportunities (4 week) at various locations around the world and a number of them are in Mexico and other South American countries. I think some of them do have basic spanish classes integrated into the program. You may want to check it out...I heard they're great! The website is: www.cfhi.org. Good luck!

You may want to look into doing an away rotation in Puerto Rico. Although, PR is considered a US territory, the majority of the people here speak Spanish primarily. There are three LCME accredited schools to which you may apply: UPR, Universidad Central del Caribe and the Ponce school of medicine. Most of the doctors here at least understand English, so you will always have that safety net, but as far as the patients and nurses are concerned you will need to speak Spanish.