Language competency

[Hayduke]

This great person I married is freezing up here in our present locale. Both of us want to head back south and get some decent food plus a little color besides frost-nip pink.
I would like to attend residency and hopefully practice somewhere in the southeast or southwest. (preferably SW)

It seems like a good handle on espanol is a must-have for many of these spots. In a former life I saw what can happen when you think you know what's being said. I don't want to be the guy making that mistake.
My tiny bit of touristo Spanish has really taken a dive in medical school. There is no way I could claim to perform an adequate exam with my current language tools.

So, I have a couple of questions-

1.If I am asked during an interview "do you speak Spanish?". What entitles me to answer "yes"? Basically, how is fluency measured at most places?
2. I am currently an MS3 with 12 long weeks of clerkship, step 2, and hopefully a couple of audition months before trail season. Is there any way I could obtain the accumen required to answer question 1 honestly before trail time?
3. Any suggestions?

Thanks-
H

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[GeneralVeers]

You pick up Spanish FAST if you have to. On a given day 1/3 to 2/3 of my patients do not speak any English. Being county, we rarely have anyone around who can translate. I can now do a reasonable H&P for most of the common problems without help, and I started out last July with zero Spanish.

It definitely helps, but does not preclude you from taking a residency spot here.

 

[vtucci]

I am at USF COM and spanish is used quite frequently in the ED and elsewhere in the hospital. I thought I could say I knew Spanish as I took several years in college but keep in mind, that medical spanish is very different. I would recommend taking medical spanish as an elective your 4th year. That is my plan to bone up. Also, I volunteered at an urban ED in NYC and 75% of the patients did not speak English as a first language so I am curious that you have not run across this yet.

 

[trkd]

Interesting that this came up. I have been thinking about the same thing. I have studied Spanish in high school/college/med school (only private lessons in med school). I also travelled to South America last year. That said, med spanish is a different animal. So I am planning to spend 2-3 months in a Central American hospital before residency. I will be up to date on Spanish by residency. Does that mean I can put "fluent" in Spanish? If something comes up at the interview, it will be a bit less than truthful. Dilemma .

 

[Hayduke]

I volunteered at an urban ED in NYC and 75% of the patients did not speak English as a first language so I am curious that you have not run across this yet.

Recall that there is a giant barren snowscape north of NYC inhabited predominantly by very pale white people. These poor souls do speak another language. It consists of an English variant devoid of 'Rs' except when a word ends in 'A'.
Por examplo-
You or I might say: "We are going to Astoria this weekend. I hope to eat at the new fondu place."

They would interpret this as: "Weeeeeah goin' Astorior this week...end. I heah tha nu dunkin' has a wikkid selectshuun o'jimmies."

It is a wild and mysterious wonderland up here. We have been truly enriched meeting these uniformly colored people with their donut-scented, wind-chapped skin.

 

[Hayduke]

Interesting that this came up. I have been thinking about the same thing. I have studied Spanish in high school/college/med school (only private lessons in med school). I also travelled to South America last year. That said, med spanish is a different animal. So I am planning to spend 2-3 months in a Central American hospital before residency. I will be up to date on Spanish by residency. Does that mean I can put "fluent" in Spanish? If something comes up at the interview, it will be a bit less than truthful. Dilemma .

I used to work as a nurse in towns pretty close to the border. The language was so common that I convinced myself I was understanding. I was awakened from this fantasy when the border patrol guys brought in a gentleman that required some care. I launched into my intake speech/questioning. After about 2 minutes both officers and their charge started giggling. That was the last time I tried without an interpreter.

I did a month immersion in Spain after MSI, and every vacation I have taken for the last ten years has been travelling somewhere that Spanish was predominant.
I still lack any proficiency.
My question from above still stands.
How can I demonstrate fluency? or
By what method do PDs measure an applicant's facility w/ a language?
Thanks

 

[BKN]

This great person I married is freezing up here in our present locale. Both of us want to head back south and get some decent food plus a little color besides frost-nip pink.
I would like to attend residency and hopefully practice somewhere in the southeast or southwest. (preferably SW)

It seems like a good handle on espanol is a must-have for many of these spots. In a former life I saw what can happen when you think you know what's being said. I don't want to be the guy making that mistake.
My tiny bit of touristo Spanish has really taken a dive in medical school. There is no way I could claim to perform an adequate exam with my current language tools.

So, I have a couple of questions-

1.If I am asked during an interview "do you speak Spanish?". What entitles me to answer "yes"? Basically, how is fluency measured at most places?
2. I am currently an MS3 with 12 long weeks of clerkship, step 2, and hopefully a couple of audition months before trail season. Is there any way I could obtain the accumen required to answer question 1 honestly before trail time?
3. Any suggestions?

Thanks-
H

1. At El Paso, we just ask during the interview: "How's your Spanish?" Then we help to classify it as None, Basic, Intermediate or Fluent.
2. If not fluent, our EM1s get a 32 hour Spanish course in the first month.
3. Apparently, unlike the General's place, since we're 1 mile form the border, half of our RNs and Techs are bilingual, so we always have translation services.
4. By the time they graduate, our residents are at least at the intermediate level.

As to what to do- a lot of applicants are going to Mexico or Central America for a month of immersion medical Spanish. Here's one of the better organized:

http://www.pacemd.org/

 

[margaritaboy]

At least at our program, one's fluency in Spanish is not a criteria for their acceptance here. I do think it is a great tool and really helps in terms of personal connection to your patients, not to mention the added speed of not having to wait for a translator.

You do learn the basics pretty fast, especially in a doctor driven conversation where people's vocabulary and answers to questions are limited to the questions they are asked. If you are really serious about it though, then I would recomend an emersion program. Sometimes you can set up a student rotation in a foreign country, and take one-to-one Spanish lessions on the side.

 

[DocCM]

I would be reluctuant to say you are fluent in a foreign language unless you would be comfortable having the entire interview conducted in that language. I know a few people who claimed to be fluent in Spanish on their applications (either ERAS or PS) to whom this happened.

 

[turtle md]

My Spanish comes and goes. When around others speaking Spanish, I am back to "conversationally" fluent in a matter of days. But not using it for a short while will cause me to dis-remember. On my application, I said no to fluent, but added that I had some knowledge of Spanish (more Mexican, really ). I was able to claim fluency in Swedish, however - not that it got me too many bonus points.

 

[corpsmanUP]

The best measure in my opinion as to whether you are "proficient" , not necessarily fluent, is if you can make it through a patient encounter without an interpreter. I moonlight as a PA in a clinic that is 99% Spanish speaking only. I have limped through it with the slight amount of Spanish I learned from my family as a child. I never use an interpreter, but I still suck. I put on my application that I was proficient, not fluent. Never check fluent unless you are just that, fluent. My guess is the best way to rapidly prepare yourself for Spanish immersion would be to take a basic course, or buy a basic book. Once you learn all the basic nouns and pronouns, adjectives etc.., you are ready to start talking. You need a book on Spanish verb conjugation because the rest is all from experience. Pick up future, past, and most all present tense in all the major verbs like give, be, get, have, etc.. Then buy a medical Spanish book and read it over and over until you are comfortable with those nouns and sayings. You can easily go from zero to 60 in about 4 weeks with this method. Just realize that Spanish spoken by intelligent educated Spaniards is nothing like the broken slang spoken by people south of the border.

Just try and take a German immigrant who learned English from some book and ask him to have a conversation with a Mississippi farmhand who's accent makes Bush look like a freaking scholar. It's all in the dialect and in the ability of the person to speak their own language!!

 

[vtucci]

I used to work as a nurse in towns pretty close to the border. The language was so common that I convinced myself I was understanding. I was awakened from this fantasy when the border patrol guys brought in a gentleman that required some care. I launched into my intake speech/questioning. After about 2 minutes both officers and their charge started giggling. That was the last time I tried without an interpreter.

I did a month immersion in Spain after MSI, and every vacation I have taken for the last ten years has been travelling somewhere that Spanish was predominant.
I still lack any proficiency.
My question from above still stands.
How can I demonstrate fluency? or
By what method do PDs measure an applicant's facility w/ a language?
Thanks

;-) I know that NYC is not the standard re: the NE. However, my college roommate works at Dartmouth in Infectious Disease and she has come across a lot of spanish speakers up there as well. I did undergrad in CT and spent a lot of time on Long Island and in some parts of both places, spanish is becoming as commonly spoken as english.

 

[BKN]

Just try and take a German immigrant who learned English from some book and ask him to have a conversation with a Mississippi farmhand who's accent makes Bush look like a freaking scholar. It's all in the dialect and in the ability of the person to speak their own language!!

My wife took a different approach for her veterinary practice, with approximately 20% of her clients speaking Spanish only. She had no training at all, but she's not bad now. She bought a bunch of DVDs with dual language and subtitles. Watches movies first in English with Spansih subtitles, then in Spansih with English subtitles and then in Spansih alone. does this about 3 times/wk. She's seen some really bad movies. We did take two weeks immersion in Cuernavaca a couple of years ago, but most of what she's got came from the movies.

Oh yeah, I agree with the above. Do not claim fluency unless you mean it. In my shop, half the faculty would just as soon interview you in Spanish as English. Not to trip you up, just because they like Spanish. BTW it's a selection factor here, but not a large one.

 

[Hayduke]

I appreciate all of the responses. Thank you for the examples and suggestions.

Corpsman-The proficient vs. fluency tip is a key nugget. I have not yet looked at the ERAS site.

BKN-I forwarded that link to my spouse who has already looked at couples housing and a course for her while I do the clinical. Luckily she keeps me in the way I am accustomed. That rotation's price tag might make a nice graduation present.
Right now it looks like I have to find the Spanish edition of 'Blue Velvet'.
"Ola vecino!"

Thanks again.
H

 

[turtle md]

The best measure in my opinion as to whether you are "proficient" , not necessarily fluent, is if you can make it through a patient encounter without an interpreter.

Well said.

 

[Apollyon]

She's seen some really bad movies.

You don't know the gravity of this until you see some of the movies he speaks of. Kind of like saying the stove is hot - until you actually get burned.

(In defense, though, there are also some gems.)

 

[trkd]

So I am doing the application and I thought I would revive this thread a bit. There is a space for language competency up to 255 characters. I am not sure what to say for my spanish. If they took me to a patient on interview day, I could do the entire thing in spanish pretty well without any interpreters. So, should I say "conversational" or "intermediate" or what? I don't really know the terminology used here. I don't really want to say "fluent" because in my mind that is essentially what a native speaker can say.

 

[mlw03]

So I am doing the application and I thought I would revive this thread a bit. There is a space for language competency up to 255 characters. I am not sure what to say for my spanish. If they took me to a patient on interview day, I could do the entire thing in spanish pretty well without any interpreters. So, should I say "conversational" or "intermediate" or what? I don't really know the terminology used here. I don't really want to say "fluent" because in my mind that is essentially what a native speaker can say.

i don't know what the option on ERAS are (i'm an MS3 right now), but from an EM perspective, I would think 2 things are required to be fluent: 1) ability to take a full history, even in less than ideal circumstances and 2) ability to obtain INFORMED consent for procedures. whether you have a grinto accent or sound like you lived in Madrid for 4 years while doing all this matters not - it's about being able to communicate the pertinent information. on your app I would write just what you said, "I feel my level of Spanish is adequate to obtain a full history from a patient without the need for an interpreter." if you also think you could obtain informed consent, say that too. Of course the most important thing is to be able to back it up because you could easily be asked to prove your skills during an interview day.

As a slight aside, I think all these language issues are a really fascinating topic from a sociologic perspective (part of my undergrad life, so i enjoy looking at these types of issues). Here we are, future doctors in the US, and there's little room for argument that in every major metropolitan area and the entire SW part of the country being able to speak some, if not fluent, Spanish is almost a requisite for being able to practice emergency medicine.