Medical Spanish Programs

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sweetpeamd09

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So I looked on here for information on medical spanish/study abroad programs in C. America and didn't see anything... I want to go to Costa Rica this summer like I want to take my next breath. If you know of programs there, or other ones you've really enjoyed--please, do share. 😉 One of the ones I'm considering is Adventure Education Center's med. spanish program in Costa Rica.

Also, I am trying to get some funding so the thousands of $ won't be solely coming from my lovely loan money. Please let me know of any luck you have had with finding funding. I have a few straws to grasp at (small scholarships from my school, Rotary Club, my college) but the more the merrier. Thanks 😍
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I had a great experience at Ileri in Escazu, a very nice suburb of San Jose. They also have a school near Manuel Antonio and the beach. Spanish classes are about $10/hr and they offer housing with Tico families or a hostel. We stayed with my in-laws so I don't know the cost of housing.
Leonore is the owner/head instructor and has extensive education and language training. One of their instructors is also a physician in the area and helps out with medical spanish.
http://www.ilerispanishschool.com/
 
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I found a great program in Guatemala.

Here is the link for Pop-Wuj Medical Spanish Program. I think it is $200 a week which includes room, board and all meals along with 4 hours a day one on one tutoring.
 
Neuronix said:
I did Pop-wuj a few years ago if anyone has any questions.
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Please tell us your impression of the program. Was it worth your time and money? What did you wish you have known or have done? Any surprises?
 
I have mixed feelings about the program.

I was surpised at the number of people who showed up there who knew very little Spanish, knew no medicine (and after first year you don't), and wanted to get hands on with the locals. I wouldn't recommend the program to anyone who doesn't yet have clinical experience and doesn't have at least a working amount of Spanish. Of course, bring as much of your own gear as you can, even a blood pressure cuff will probably be useful. If you don't have both some level of Spanish and medicine, you will get to shadow primarily. The problem is, that's what everyone else will be doing. Some of the shadowing troops were like 5 people following around one doctor. When I went I had 6 months of clinics and a decent level of Spanish, so I got to go around with a Doctora from the public health service and see patients with surprising and somewhat scary amount of autonomy. It was a great experience. Several people who were between first and second year wouldn't have done the program had they done it over again. If this is you, you may be better off spending less money and just doing the regular Spanish program without the medical part. You can attend mostly the same lectures (which were +/- useful) and still do all sorts of volutneering stuff where you'll be more useful and you save like $50/week. The school is sort of on the fringe of downtown Xela, so try to get hosted in downtown if you want to do things like go out to eat frequently. When the school fills up (summers primarily) some people get put pretty far out.

There are also lots more Spanish instruction places in Xela. It's a big industry there. Xela is decent as far as Guatemala goes. I had a hard time getting used to the altitude and got sick a few times when I was there, but I think that's true for everyone who goes. Guatemala is in general a really neat place, and I really like the fact that it's off the beaten tourist track. I travelled around the country for a few weeks also and I have been through parts of Honduras and Mexico as well. Xela is a good jump-off point for these sorts of excursions. The other place where there's alot of Spanish instruction schools in Guatemala is Antigua but I wouldn't recommend Antigua as much. It's probably the most touristy part of the country, so you may not learn as much.
 
Neuronix said:
I have mixed feelings about the program.

I was surpised at the number of people who showed up there who knew very little Spanish, knew no medicine (and after first year you don't), and wanted to get hands on with the locals. I wouldn't recommend the program to anyone who doesn't yet have clinical experience and doesn't have at least a working amount of Spanish. Of course, bring as much of your own gear as you can, even a blood pressure cuff will probably be useful. If you don't have both some level of Spanish and medicine, you will get to shadow primarily. The problem is, that's what everyone else will be doing. Some of the shadowing troops were like 5 people following around one doctor. When I went I had 6 months of clinics and a decent level of Spanish, so I got to go around with a Doctora from the public health service and see patients with surprising and somewhat scary amount of autonomy. It was a great experience. Several people who were between first and second year wouldn't have done the program had they done it over again. If this is you, you may be better off spending less money and just doing the regular Spanish program without the medical part. You can attend mostly the same lectures (which were +/- useful) and still do all sorts of volutneering stuff where you'll be more useful and you save like $50/week. The school is sort of on the fringe of downtown Xela, so try to get hosted in downtown if you want to do things like go out to eat frequently. When the school fills up (summers primarily) some people get put pretty far out.

There are also lots more Spanish instruction places in Xela. It's a big industry there. Xela is decent as far as Guatemala goes. I had a hard time getting used to the altitude and got sick a few times when I was there, but I think that's true for everyone who goes. Guatemala is in general a really neat place, and I really like the fact that it's off the beaten tourist track. I travelled around the country for a few weeks also and I have been through parts of Honduras and Mexico as well. Xela is a good jump-off point for these sorts of excursions. The other place where there's alot of Spanish instruction schools in Guatemala is Antigua but I wouldn't recommend Antigua as much. It's probably the most touristy part of the country, so you may not learn as much.
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You can only shadow if you're between first and second year? I know the level of clinical exposure is low, but what if you go to a school that has a lot of early exposure (so that you're comfortable with H&P) and you have a moderate amount of medical spanish... would you at least be allowed to do a basic physical? Otherwise, it would seem as if you're right, and this is not the best program to participate in for that situation.
 
hey food for thought

i spent a summer volunteering in a free clinic in texas. youre really needed and wanted by the staff, you learn a lot of clinical stuff, you learn spanish, and you dont pay to support a spanish immersion industry🙂
 
ahoyfatty said:
You can only shadow if you're between first and second year? I know the level of clinical exposure is low, but what if you go to a school that has a lot of early exposure (so that you're comfortable with H&P) and you have a moderate amount of medical spanish... would you at least be allowed to do a basic physical? Otherwise, it would seem as if you're right, and this is not the best program to participate in for that situation.
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You might be able to convince them to let you do H&Ps and present patients... Hard to say. Depends on who they have taking medical students from them at the time I would guess. To the poster above, don't forget that you are getting 4 hours a day of 1 on 1 Spanish instruction with the program or 5 if you don't do the medical program. For the money including room and board and other events with the program, it's a very good deal. I did a similar but much more expensive program in Spain, and 1 on 1 instruction there is practically unheard of (outside of $2,000/week!).
 
i did the AEC program 2 years ago, PM me if you have any questions. i now work in a spanish-heavy hospital and i'm quite functional, probably close to fluent.
 
Neuronix said:
You might be able to convince them to let you do H&Ps and present patients... Hard to say. Depends on who they have taking medical students from them at the time I would guess. To the poster above, don't forget that you are getting 4 hours a day of 1 on 1 Spanish instruction with the program or 5 if you don't do the medical program. For the money including room and board and other events with the program, it's a very good deal. I did a similar but much more expensive program in Spain, and 1 on 1 instruction there is practically unheard of (outside of $2,000/week!).
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Neuronix, did you do Pop-Wuj as a 4th year rotation? What is the quality of the Spanish instruction and how many hours a day did you spend in clinical stuff? Did you get to work in a hospital environment at all or was it all in the clinic? Did you have any free time outside of the program?
 
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The way my program is structured, I get 6 months of clinical rotations and then time off. So I went down essentially as a mid third year. To me it seems like they pretty much treated me as a fourth year. It's kind of an all-or-none phenomenon. If you have clinic experience + Spanish, you're given a decent level of autonomy and probably sent off on your own or with one other student with a doctor. The Spanish instruction is excellent. In general in Guatemala and some surrounding areas, you get 5 hours a day of 1on1 Spanish tutoring. The medical program only gives you 4 hours a day. If you put yourself in a non-touristy area (and Xela isn't very touristy), you'll need to use Spanish all the time. However, if you know no or little Spanish coming into the medical program, you won't be much help down there and you'll be left to shadow. Interpreters are not provided.

I rotated through rural clinics with a doctora from the public health service. I was kept pretty busy on the weekdays, though I travelled on the weekends. I also built a few weeks into my trip just to tour the country, so I went just about everywhere else I could (some touristy, some not).

My advice in general is that Guatemala is possibly the best place to learn Spanish for your money. But, if you don't have some experience in both medicine and Spanish coming down, the medical program probably isn't worth it IMO. Pop-wuj has alot of other programs to get involved with the community besides medicine if you'd still like to do other types of community service while you study Spanish. There's lots of other Spanish schools that provide pretty much the same training so you have plenty of options.
 
Thanks for the info. I am planning on doing one of my 4th year away electives in a Spanish-speaking country, and Pop-Wuj seems like a program that is great and probably my medical school will approve as well. I am almost conversational in Spanish so I'd probably be fluent after this program. Did I ask how many hours a day you spent in clinical activities? I'm not sure if it would really matter to my school or not, but I want to make sure I know everything in advance in case I get any questions! The autonomy sounds really good too. I've been on a medical mission to a Spanish-speaking country and I got to do a lot without any clinical experience, but this one will probably be even more so. Thanks again for the information.
 
We're talking about ~4 hours a day of Spanish instruction, ~5 hours a day of clinic (flexible and depends on what you get for shadowing), and probably some homework. I think you'd have a good time there 👍 They usually ask you take like a week of classes (+/- useful) about Mayan culture and herbal medicine before you start in the clinics.
 
Agree with Neuronix about having Spanish experience before bothering learning Medical Spanish abroad.

The basics of medical Spanish (describe the pain, are you on any prescription medications, when was your last menstrual cycle, etc.) is pretty easy to learn via home schooling. Until your base level Spanish is at a level that you can carry on a solid conversation in at least present, past and future tense, I wouldn't bother with Medical Spanish abroad. You run into a brick wall as soon as you actually hit, "So why are you here?" and hear a bunch of <shudder> verbs...
 
I spent four months studying Spanish in Xela at a school called Celas Maya. It's probably the biggest school in Xela and has some of the best teachers and activities. My goal was not to learn medical Spanish, but to learn Spanish period and then do some medical volunteering. I was there for four months and I only consider myself halfway to fluency. I understand most grammatical structures (except the subjunctive) and have a fair amount of words, but I am nowhere close to being able to use it in a medical setting.

That being said, I will probably use this summer off before med school to travel to Peru and Ecuador to finish my Spanish education. My goal is to be fluent/functional before I get to med school and then to apply for a job as an interpreter in a hospital while I'm in school. You have to use it almost every day or you're going to lose it.

Learning a language is not something you can do in three weeks or even three months. You can learn some basic words and enough to get by in a clinical setting, but to actually get a handle on the language takes at least 5 moths of constant practice. Also these settings aren't truly immersive because there are lots of other foreigners around to converse in English with. I would say I was speaking about 6-7 hours of Spanish a day and the rest was English. This summer, I am going to try to truly immerse myself and stay away from foreigners as much as possible.

If you really want to learn Spanish, you have to intentionally place yourself in a Spanish-only environment for a fair period of time. School can accelerate this process by teaching you the grammar, but it takes a lot of hard work and memorization to learn a language. Good luck and if you have any questions about Xela, let me know.
 
Anyone know any good volunteer opportunities in the Houston Metro area (or perhaps Austin -- I'll only be here a couple more months) where I would be exposed to Spanish enough to start picking some up? My Spanish skills virtually non-existent (picked up a few words here & there) ... maybe I should just take a class at a community college first? I'm looking for something that takes maybe 5 hours per week but maybe that is part of the problem (perhaps it requires more time to learn it). It seems like one needs to know the basics of the language to stand a chance with the medical part. I'll start taking some informal classes to pick up as much of the basics as I can.
 
OncoCaP said:
Anyone know any good volunteer opportunities in the Houston Metro area (or perhaps Austin -- I'll only be here a couple more months) where I would be exposed to Spanish enough to start picking some up? My Spanish skills virtually non-existent (picked up a few words here & there) ... maybe I should just take a class at a community college first? I'm looking for something that takes maybe 5 hours per week but maybe that is part of the problem (perhaps it requires more time to learn it). It seems like one needs to know the basics of the language to stand a chance with the medical part. I'll start taking some informal classes to pick up as much of the basics as I can.
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I don't know about volunteer opportunities, but I've been taking Continuing Education Spanish classes in the Houston area for the last year or so. I've taken from both University of Houston and Rice.

UofH offers immersion-type courses on two weekends Fri night, Sat and Sun. I took their Spanish 1 and really enjoyed it, enough so that I planned to take 2, 3, 4 and 5 there. But they cancelled my Spanish 2 class due to lack of enrollment, screwing up my beautiful schedule, so I moved to Rice. UofH also offers more traditional, medical Spanish classes (four levels) Tuesday and Thursday evenings. As I rehearse Tuesday evenings, I haven't been to any of those. Here's the site, click on "Programs Offered". http://www.uh.edu/continuingeducation/home/home.html

Rice is a twice a week for eight weeks class, more focused on structures and grammar than UofH, (that may just be because I've been in more advanced classes here), though I think the all-day classes at UofH really lend themselves to practice speaking. Rice is excellent, though, and I feel like I'm learning a lot. Here's the site: http://www.scs.rice.edu/scs/Foreign_Language_Program.asp?SnID=598175464
 
arroser said:
I don't know about volunteer opportunities, but I've been taking Continuing Education Spanish classes in the Houston area for the last year or so. I've taken from both University of Houston and Rice.

UofH offers immersion-type courses on two weekends Fri night, Sat and Sun. I took their Spanish 1 and really enjoyed it, enough so that I planned to take 2, 3, 4 and 5 there. But they cancelled my Spanish 2 class due to lack of enrollment, screwing up my beautiful schedule, so I moved to Rice. UofH also offers more traditional, medical Spanish classes (four levels) Tuesday and Thursday evenings. As I rehearse Tuesday evenings, I haven't been to any of those. Here's the site, click on "Programs Offered". http://www.uh.edu/continuingeducation/home/home.html

Rice is a twice a week for eight weeks class, more focused on structures and grammar than UofH, (that may just be because I've been in more advanced classes here), though I think the all-day classes at UofH really lend themselves to practice speaking. Rice is excellent, though, and I feel like I'm learning a lot. Here's the site: http://www.scs.rice.edu/scs/Foreign_Language_Program.asp?SnID=598175464
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Hey, thanks for the links! I will check them out; both programs look interesting at first glance of the web sites. I signed up for an informal class at UT Austin to get moving on this (I plan to be in Austin until ~May, after which I plan to be mostly in Houston). Some classes would probably serve me better at this point. Once I have some basics down, then using the skill in a volunteer situation might make sense.
 
beanbean said:
I had a great experience at Ileri in Escazu, a very nice suburb of San Jose. They also have a school near Manuel Antonio and the beach. Spanish classes are about $10/hr and they offer housing with Tico families or a hostel. We stayed with my in-laws so I don't know the cost of housing.
Leonore is the owner/head instructor and has extensive education and language training. One of their instructors is also a physician in the area and helps out with medical spanish.
http://www.ilerispanishschool.com/
Click to expand...

woah. someone else knows leonore? there were only 2 other people taking classes when i was there. small world. anyway, associacion cultural de intercambio (http://aci-cr.org/content/view/43//lang,en/) is based in costa rica, works with Ileri, and can set you up with some good programs that are hospital volunteer-oriented and very cheap. it's more public health and hospital volunteering-based than straightforward medical spanish. i think it's easier to find programs based in costa rica than programs based in the US for this sort of thing.
 
I did a medical spanish program in costa rica last summer in alajeula that i booked through this company http://www.amerispan.com/salud_medical_spanish_programs/faq.asp. It was a great experience and i made a lot of friends and went from barely speaking spanish to being able to talk alot in spanish. They have different programs in central america and the specific language school i went to through them is not doing medical spanish this summer but they are a great school.
 
sweetpeamd09 said:
So I looked on here for information on medical spanish/study abroad programs in C. America and didn't see anything... I want to go to Costa Rica this summer like I want to take my next breath. If you know of programs there, or other ones you've really enjoyed--please, do share. 😉 One of the ones I'm considering is Adventure Education Center's med. spanish program in Costa Rica.

Also, I am trying to get some funding so the thousands of $ won't be solely coming from my lovely loan money. Please let me know of any luck you have had with finding funding. I have a few straws to grasp at (small scholarships from my school, Rotary Club, my college) but the more the merrier. Thanks 😍
Click to expand...

I can't help you with finding a place for this summer, but I do know that those who were successful with funding did so through bake sales. Some gave a speech in front of the class asking for money to support a certain clinic or something, and then classmates would donate.

good luck
 
etudiante04 said:
I can't help you with finding a place for this summer, but I do know that those who were successful with funding did so through bake sales. Some gave a speech in front of the class asking for money to support a certain clinic or something, and then classmates would donate.
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How much money can you make with a bake sale? $1,000 or more? A plane ticket alone is at least $500, plus supplies, fees, room & board, etc... If you have 30 classmates and they each donate $20 (very unlikely), you're still going to be very short.

I posed this to a guy I interviewed for med school one time who said he did these things and he finally told me the truth. "Well, my parents paid for alot of it." This is the reality. This is an expensive proposition and there's not much money available. Get a job and save your pennies.
 
etudiante04 said:
Some gave a speech in front of the class asking for money to support a certain clinic or something, and then classmates would donate.
Click to expand...
I would find it pretty crass for a med student to ask for money from other medical students to help fund their medical spanish adventure.
 
Classmates would donate for a cause, for example, an AIDS clinic, medical supplies, NOT FOR YOUR PLANE TICKET. Students did a bake sale and raised several hundred dollars to buy medical supplies for their summer trip. Of course, these people are going in a group of 3 or 4, so they put their brains together and came up with something.

Some people raise money for a translator to help with their research project abroad.

Another person sent fundraising letters to churches, schools, classmates, families, and friends. This person was funded for a trip to Thailand.

Another group made pins and sold them for HIV awareness. The pins are really nice. This money went to an AIDS clinic in Ecuador.

Another person used summer work-study money (thats what I'm using, thank God for my school) for summer research abroad.

Some people raised money to go to New Orleans. You would be surprised to see where people put their money, as long as it goes to something worthy.

Some people apply for grants to go abroad every year.

Someone organized an auction and raised money for someting related to international work.

At least once a month, someone is having a fundraiser for something. My school is accustomed to students going abroad after first year (and in 4th year) so we know where our money is going when we donate money. Of course, my school also has the summer work study option, which nicely funds part of my trip. We will be raising money for a translator.

I agree, some people are less comfortable asking for money from classmates, but there are other creative ways to fundraise.

As for me, I know better than to ask my parents. They are not paying for me to attend med school, why would they fund my summer experience abroad?

Good luck to those who will be abroad. I will be in Ecuador this summer, so I need to catch up on my spanish (luckily, my med school teaches spanish) 🙂
 
Ixchel School in Antigua, Guatemala. Cheapest way to immerse yourself in Spanish-in the world. I did my research.
 
It's safe--for Guatemala. You have to remember this is a third world country and you will likely stand out like a sore thumb, but as far as Guatemala goes its one of the best parts of the country. If you want to be scared, read the state department's travel advisories for Guatemala. Things do happen to gringos down there, but I don't imagine they're any worse or frequent than the rest of latin America. One of the things I did NOT like about Pop-Wuj is that many students got stuck out in the outlying parts of Xela, even a 20 minute walk from the school. These areas of town feel less safe, but who knows if that's true. It's definately not as happening as being in zona 1 (the school is on the edge of zona 1).

As for Guatemala City (Guate)--it's a hole, but you can't avoid flying there from the states I don't think. There is no longer air service to Xela and its a 4 hour bus ride. I think there are direct services from Guate Airport to Antigua (more touristy) or even Guate to Xela. Otherwise, you can get a taxi from the airtport into town straight to a bus station.
 
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