Do I need to be fluent in Spanish to use it in the clinic?

[Macromind101]

I am taking Spanish courses in undergrad (the ones required for a Spanish minor) so that I can communicate with Hispanic patients as a physician/surgeon (I may even take a summer to study abroad in Spain or South America). I was wondering if I need to be able to speak Spanish fluently (like someone who grew up speaking Spanish) in order for it to be useful in medicine. I know this may come off as a stupid question (as in, an obvious yes question) but the reason why I am unsure is because I come from a Korean-speaking family and my language communication skills are probably at the level of a middle-schooler who grew up in Korea. So it's not perfect but I can still communicate while speaking Korean pretty well. Other Korean-speakers understand me and I can probably help a Korean-speaking patient at this level right now (barring Korean medical terminology which I can learn). So I was wondering if it's the same way with Spanish. If it's possible to be able to communicate with Spanish patients without achieving fluency.

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[gyngyn]

Every little effort to communicate will be well-received. You may still need an interpreter but you will be appreciated.

 

[2010houston]

Very true. Any little bit helps, and you will pick up more as you go along.

 

[Psai]

tiene dolor? donde? en su cabeza?

 

[swindoll]

I was wondering if I need to be able to speak Spanish fluently (like someone who grew up speaking Spanish) in order for it to be useful in medicine.

The obvious answer is no.

 

[karayaa]

Maybe the OP was wondering if you must be certified, or pass a language test to use it as a professional. The answer is no, but of course there are ethical constraints - you need to make sure that you know and stay within your limits, and get help when you need to.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

You'll be appeciated even if you can only utter a few words in Spanish. Also, you can expect your Spanish to improve after spending more time with Hispanic patients.

 

[the_fella]

At least you (sort of) know a useful language. Haha. I speak German very well, but that's not very useful in the US.

 

[bc65]

With one or two years of Spanish classes behind you, you'll do fine. By the time you finish your residency, you will be as fluent as you need to be.
I never took any Spanish classes, and I learned enough over the years to communicate adequately with most of my patients, at least for the simple problems. I have often wished I had some academic background. I foolishly took French in high school instead of Spanish.

 

[LChristmas]

With one or two years of Spanish classes behind you, you'll do fine. By the time you finish your residency, you will be as fluent as you need to be.
I never took any Spanish classes, and I learned enough over the years to communicate adequately with most of my patients, at least for the simple problems. I have often wished I had some academic background. I foolishly took French in high school instead of Spanish.

Did you find that your background in French helped you at all with Spanish?

 

[Bottle]

Honestly, minimal knowledge of any language is good enough. You don't need to speak full sentences, just some critical words that help them understand you.

 

[bc65]

Did you find that your background in French helped you at all with Spanish? I ask because I'm fluent in French and I know I'll encounter my share of Spanish-speaking patients in Texas.

I speak another, very different language moderately well, and over the years have dabbled in others. I believe that a knowledge of one foreign language helps in learning others, and given that both French and Spanish are Romance languages, the French will probably help you a bit more. In my case, I learned very little French in high school, so I don't believe that the small amount of French I retained was particularly helpful with Spanish. A doctor I work with speaks Spanish, French, and Italian, but she avoids speaking French and Italian because she gets them confused and it hurts her Spanish at work. Another doctor in my department is an Anglophone Canadian from Quebec, and she speaks French and Spanish fluently, and does fine in both. She's also the only person I ever met who can understand me when I try to speak French. Honestly, though, I don't remember much beyond "la plume de ma tante et sur la table".

If you can take just a semester or two of Spanish in school, or a crash course of some kind, I think you'll get a big head start, although it's not essential. Your med school will probably offer some classes. I'm sure that having a basic foundation in Spanish of simple verb conjugation, etc, will be really helpful. But I wouldn't worry about it. Just try to learn a new phrase with every encounter. "Where's the pain" "How long have you had this" "do you have any allergies", etc.
Pretty soon you'll know the entire history and physical in Spanish .

 

[blueharbor]

I studied medical Spanish in Central America for several months and then got a job at a hospital. When I was hired they told me that officially, I couldn't talk to patients in Spanish. But unofficially, there were many occasions when nurses would try to talk to a Hispanic patient in English and there was no time to hook up the interpreter phone, and my Spanish skills were a huge help. I also worked at a free clinic as a tech and my Spanish was the reason they wanted me back every week, even though I wasn't certified as an interpreter. I was very wary about interpreting for the doctor, though; when they had nobody else, I did, but I was worried it was unethical and made clear the entire time that I was not fluent. Some of the doctors there had decent Spanish skills, and were able to get through most of their visits without help, but interpreters were usually on hand to help. In general, though, I am strongly opposed to doctor's visits with non-English speaking patients that happen without a highly skilled interpreter present or available. I've witnessed way too many failures in communication when people thought they understood what the patient was saying.

Disclaimer: I am tipsy while writing this.

Tl;dr - Spanish will be a huge help, even if it isn't always in your job description. Also, don't overestimate your skills, cuz a patient's health is at stake.

 

[bc65]

My hospital uses a phone translation service. I believe all hospitals are required to do so. So you will always have professional translocation available if you need it. Even on those occasions when I use it, my Spanish helped me to make sure the interpretation was accurate. Sometimes they got it wrong. Regarding certification, interpreters need it, but you as the doctor do not.

 

[organdonor]

My credentials: spanish major in college, never studied abroad, used my Spanish on the wards in med school and in residency.

Any level of Spanish is helpful and obviously the better your spanish the more helpful it will become. Technically even knowing just a few words helps "some" but I've seen more than a few providers get in trouble with your badly accented "dolor?" When the patient came back with an answer that wasnt either yes or no.

Most of your bigger city hospitals that have large non English populations will have interpreters on staff. Every hospital I've ever been to has had access to a language line phone interpreter. Live interpreters are ok, when available. Telephone interpreters are just awful to use. I quickly found that my limited Spanish yielded much more useful information than using an interpreter.

When you go on interviews I would ask around for Spanish speaking opportunities. Most places have loads of them. Med school can be the perfect place to practice your Spanish. Go out on a limb, try using words you haven't used before. In the end your attending will likely have to use a certified interpretation service anyway so you can see the patient before and you've got you're safety net in case you run into vocabulary you are unfamiliar with.

Some other words of advice: upper level Spanish courses (300+) aren't so much geared towards speaking the language as they are Spanish literature. Of course you are speaking only Spanish so there is an hour of "immersion" a few times a week. To really be fluent you need to spend some time in a Spanish Speaking country. I highly recommend it and that would be the one thing I would change about my college experience If I could.

You won't always have more book knowledge than the rest of your team, but if you speak the most Spanish you've just become the most useful person in the room on wards.