Need for Spanish in these IM Programs

[socal4life]

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I was wondering if someone on these posts could tell me how much Spanish knowledge you need for these IM programs. I do NOT have any knowledge of the Spanish language and am interested in these following programs. Can I get by without a grasp of the Spanish language for these programs? Or should I look elsewhere?

California:
UCSF
Stanford
UCLA
Harbor-UCLA
UCSD

Boston:
Mass Gen
Brigham
BID

Chicago:
Northwestern
Univ. of Chicago

Pennsylvania:
Univ. of Penn

Texas:
UTSW

Thanks. Happy New Year.

 

[irlandesa]

you can definitely get by without knowing Spanish in any of the Boston programs; they are chock-full of translators; though it certainly is helpful (esp. if you work at BWH/Faulkner in JP or end up at BU). Not so sure about UTSW and UCSD. Learning medical Spanish is fun, try to pick up on what you can..

 

[BStein76]

I was wondering if someone on these posts could tell me how much Spanish knowledge you need for these IM programs. I do NOT have any knowledge of the Spanish language and am interested in these following programs. Can I get by without a grasp of the Spanish language for these programs? Or should I look elsewhere?

California:
UCSF
Stanford
UCLA
Harbor-UCLA
UCSD

Boston:
Mass Gen
Brigham
BID

Chicago:
Northwestern
Univ. of Chicago

Pennsylvania:
Univ. of Penn

Texas:
UTSW

Thanks. Happy New Year.

In general, medical spanish is very useful in California (particularly Southern California) and Texas. Depending on school/hospital, a translator is generally available during working hours and after hours is through ATT. Just like any other ancillary service, private hospitals tend to have more available translators than county hospitals. Depending on which Boston program you are looking at, there are other languages such as Russian and Brazilian Portuguese, although there are options at outpatient community clinics to pick up on Spanish. Even if you don't know any Spanish, you will eventually learn some basics just listening via the translator.

However, pretty much all of the programs I have visited so far have a substantial non-English speaking population so I don't think you can avoid it. Out of the programs you have listed and the ones that overlap where I have visited, Northwestern probably has the largest English speaking population. The programs that I noticed had a large population of non-English speakers was probably UCSF (Spanish, Chinese at SFGH), UCSD (Spanish at Hillcrest), UTSW (Spanish at Parkland). It is a personal choice what your preferences are for which language you want to pick up on.

 

[wujob1980]

🙂

In general, medical spanish is very useful in California (particularly Southern California) and Texas. Depending on school/hospital, a translator is generally available during working hours and after hours is through ATT. Just like any other ancillary service, private hospitals tend to have more available translators than county hospitals. Depending on which Boston program you are looking at, there are other languages such as Russian and Brazilian Portuguese, although there are options at outpatient community clinics to pick up on Spanish. Even if you don't know any Spanish, you will eventually learn some basics just listening via the translator.

However, pretty much all of the programs I have visited so far have a substantial non-English speaking population so I don't think you can avoid it. Out of the programs you have listed and the ones that overlap where I have visited, Northwestern probably has the largest English speaking population. The programs that I noticed had a large population of non-English speakers was probably UCSF (Spanish, Chinese at SFGH), UCSD (Spanish at Hillcrest), UTSW (Spanish at Parkland). It is a personal choice what your preferences are for which language you want to pick up on.

 

[Crypt Abscess]

You will definitely need to be fairly conversant or fluent in spanish at UTSW- Parkland serves a very large Mexican-immigrant population that speaks very little English. Very few translators were available when I worked there years ago. If you need a translator, you have to wait awhile or use a phone translator service (which can be very ackward). For the most part, if you train at any program in Texas that has a large county hospital, you will need to speak spanish.

 

[BoxOfRain]

I think that speaking Spanish is practically a "must-have" skill in California - and as someone noted before, especially in Southern California. I'm currently in San Diego and although my medical Spanish is far from fluent, it really helps to at least have a fundamental grasp of it. All in all, you communicate with your patients better and through personal experience, I've never had one of those translator phones actually do what it is supposed to do. 🙂 But, even if you don't know Spanish don't automatically discount the programs - it's not that hard to pick up the basics and I have a lot of books/tapes that I try to practice with (Spanish-speaking radio stations also help).