How important is learning Spanish?

[Winged Scapula]

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Old post but just want to say this is spot on. I said something in a similar thread but as a 3rd year there's very little you bring to the party: your notes can't be used, you usually can't put in orders (even if you do they have to be cosigned), you can't do procedures unsupervised etc. People talk about being "useful" to the team but aside from some very low-level stuff (calling outside facilities, for example) or acting as a gofer it's not really possible to be useful. But speaking a foreign language (Spanish being far and away the most common almost everywhere in the US) when none of the attendings or residents do? Now you have a use. I got the "do you speak Spanish?" question from attendings several times during 3rd year and I always had to cringe a little inside when I said no. For you incoming M1s, do it the summer after first year; pre-meds can do it the summer before M1. Trust me that this will be 1000x more valuable to you than any of your idiotic attempts to pre-study anatomy.

Yep.

On a day-to-day basis, my Spanish speaking staff member is infinitely more helpful to me than anyone else. Everybody can do the same job but she's the only one that can communicate with a significant number of our patients who don't speak English or have limited capabilities.


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[SurfingDoctor]

Yep.

On a day-to-day basis, my Spanish speaking staff member is infinitely more helpful to me than anyone else. Everybody can do the same job but she's the only one that can communicate with a significant number of our patients who don't speak English or have limited capabilities.


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The only caveat to this is that most hospitals will require proof of fluency and credentialing as a medical translator. This is for many reasons, but the main one is patient care and safety. For instance, if someone is using their cursory, conversational knowledge of Spanish and either can't or improperly tells a patient the correct information, be it medication use, consent for procedure, whatever, there is a risk for liability. I certainly have the ability to get by with Spanish, but even if I get what a family is saying, I always get a translator. If you want to learn it to speak for kicks and giggles, by all means. But if you want to learn it to speak to patients (this goes for any language BTW), you need to become fluent and prove your competency to the hospital where you are employed.

 

[Winged Scapula]

The only caveat to this is that most hospitals will require proof of fluency and credentialing as a medical translator. This is for many reasons, but the main one is patient care and safety. For instance, if someone is using their cursory, conversational knowledge of Spanish and either can't or improperly tells a patient the correct information, be it medication use, consent for procedure, whatever, there is a risk for liability. I certainly have the ability to get by with Spanish, but even if I get what a family is saying, I always get a translator. If you want to learn it to speak for kicks and giggles, by all means. But if you want to learn it to speak to patients (this goes for any language BTW), you need to become fluent and prove your competency to the hospital where you are employed.

Not everyone is employed by a hospital. 😉

My point is that speaking Spanish comes in very handy regardless of one's role in patient care.