Spanish as a Pre Med

[ad5858]

Hello!

I hope that whoever gets to this email is having a great summer.

Here’s my background to help inform you best of my current situation: I’m currently a rising sophomore at a competitive university majoring in Biochemistry. I’ve had pretty extensive research experience at a chemical lab here at school (hundreds of hours throughout last year), 40+ hours of medical shadowing this summer, a solid volunteering portfolio, and a 4.0 cumulative GPA (as of right now). I also co-founded a small startup venture in the EdTech space.

I’m extremely interested in pursuing an MD after college and have always been drawn to medicine as a career. As such, of course, I want to maximize my chances of getting into a medical school.

In effect, I’ve been so torn with the decision to stop taking Spanish classes for two reasons. First of all, I feel that if I am able to stick it out and retain a high grade point in that class, I could have a real capability to provide patients from Spanish-speaking countries with the best possible care. Secondly, I thought that I could portray this intention on my medical school applications and I may stand out if I had, for example, six semesters of Spanish under my belt.

However, after shadowing, it’s clear to me that hospitals are generally required to have in-house translators anyways! Even though one of the docs I shadowed could speak Spanish himself as well, he defaulted to the translator out of fear of saying something wrong (honestly, that seems like a liability!) when a patient came in who was native to that language. Furthermore, my Spanish speaking abilities are quite well developed already primarily in the conversational standpoint, and I can’t imagine I’ll be writing essays in Spanish to my patients one day down the line.

So, this realization has somewhat demotivated me from pursuing the language. I think to be honest with myself, I’d much rather pursue a biotech or comp sci minor as I’ve always been super intrigued by those studies. Though it seems like I’ve answered myself here, I just wanted to check in with the Pre-Health community and ask if taking Spanish for all four years would provide me a significant competitive advantage. After all, gaining acceptance to med school and pursuing a medical career is my top priority, and if taking Spanish throughout college will greatly help my chances of getting into med school I'll happily do it.

For whoever read all of that, I appreciate you!

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[stinkycheeseperson]

nobody cares whether you can speak another language
but if you put it on your app they may ask about it
you are almost always required to have a translator available
do things because you want to not because you think it will impress adcoms
a high gpa does not mean you know anything
right now you sound like 95% of all applicants.

 

[KnightDoc]

No one cares what your major or minor is -- adcoms only care that you do well. I have to respectfully disagree with @stinkycheeseperson, however, with respect to speaking another language.

If you are fluent in another language, that absolutely is an advantage, and Spanish is probably the best second language of all. That said, @stinkycheeseperson is 1,000,000% correct that 6 semesters doesn't not necessarily confer fluency. OTOH, you could be fluent with zero semesters if it is spoken at home, or if you picked it up on your own.

Bottom line -- speaking another language is great, but nobody cares about foreign language majors or minors. Either you possess the skill or you don't.

 

[stinkycheeseperson]

kidding @KnightDoc i luv u

it's nice to have but not like, amazingly unique esp spanish.

 

[KnightDoc]

kidding @KnightDoc i luv u

it's nice to have but not like, amazingly unique esp spanish.

True. It's neither unique nor required, but it absolutely is valued, and it's incorrect to say nobody cares about it, because they definitely do!

 

[deleted1025488]

Spanish is essentially required by some schools, like UCLA, fyi.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

There are many schools (like my own) where spanish will definitely be a huge help, but not a required component of getting admitted. It matters less what your spanish class GPA is though and more that you are actually conversant, especially if you have medical spanish skills. There is a place on AMCAS to list language proficiency even if there are no classes on your transcript.

As far as translators go, while technically recommended I've never seen a fluent spanish speaker utilize a translator in any of my hospitals (but that is because spanish speaking docs are as ubiquitous as spanish speaking patients here, would be a big waste of translator resources given the number of those interactions daily). If you're not totally fluent though, or don't have medical spanish knowledge, then definitely better to use a translator because important details could be easily lost.

Take spanish courses if you enjoy them. If you don't, it would be a good idea to try to keep up your conversational skills but it's not going to be your golden ticket to med school or anything

 

[deleted1098639]

Hello!

I hope that whoever gets to this email is having a great summer.

Here’s my background to help inform you best of my current situation: I’m currently a rising sophomore at a competitive university majoring in Biochemistry. I’ve had pretty extensive research experience at a chemical lab here at school (hundreds of hours throughout last year), 40+ hours of medical shadowing this summer, a solid volunteering portfolio, and a 4.0 cumulative GPA (as of right now). I also co-founded a small startup venture in the EdTech space.

I’m extremely interested in pursuing an MD after college and have always been drawn to medicine as a career. As such, of course, I want to maximize my chances of getting into a medical school.

In effect, I’ve been so torn with the decision to stop taking Spanish classes for two reasons. First of all, I feel that if I am able to stick it out and retain a high grade point in that class, I could have a real capability to provide patients from Spanish-speaking countries with the best possible care. Secondly, I thought that I could portray this intention on my medical school applications and I may stand out if I had, for example, six semesters of Spanish under my belt.

However, after shadowing, it’s clear to me that hospitals are generally required to have in-house translators anyways! Even though one of the docs I shadowed could speak Spanish himself as well, he defaulted to the translator out of fear of saying something wrong (honestly, that seems like a liability!) when a patient came in who was native to that language. Furthermore, my Spanish speaking abilities are quite well developed already primarily in the conversational standpoint, and I can’t imagine I’ll be writing essays in Spanish to my patients one day down the line.

So, this realization has somewhat demotivated me from pursuing the language. I think to be honest with myself, I’d much rather pursue a biotech or comp sci minor as I’ve always been super intrigued by those studies. Though it seems like I’ve answered myself here, I just wanted to check in with the Pre-Health community and ask if taking Spanish for all four years would provide me a significant competitive advantage. After all, gaining acceptance to med school and pursuing a medical career is my top priority, and if taking Spanish throughout college will greatly help my chances of getting into med school I'll happily do it.

For whoever read all of that, I

Hello!

I hope that whoever gets to this email is having a great summer.

Here’s my background to help inform you best of my current situation: I’m currently a rising sophomore at a competitive university majoring in Biochemistry. I’ve had pretty extensive research experience at a chemical lab here at school (hundreds of hours throughout last year), 40+ hours of medical shadowing this summer, a solid volunteering portfolio, and a 4.0 cumulative GPA (as of right now). I also co-founded a small startup venture in the EdTech space.

I’m extremely interested in pursuing an MD after college and have always been drawn to medicine as a career. As such, of course, I want to maximize my chances of getting into a medical school.

In effect, I’ve been so torn with the decision to stop taking Spanish classes for two reasons. First of all, I feel that if I am able to stick it out and retain a high grade point in that class, I could have a real capability to provide patients from Spanish-speaking countries with the best possible care. Secondly, I thought that I could portray this intention on my medical school applications and I may stand out if I had, for example, six semesters of Spanish under my belt.

However, after shadowing, it’s clear to me that hospitals are generally required to have in-house translators anyways! Even though one of the docs I shadowed could speak Spanish himself as well, he defaulted to the translator out of fear of saying something wrong (honestly, that seems like a liability!) when a patient came in who was native to that language. Furthermore, my Spanish speaking abilities are quite well developed already primarily in the conversational standpoint, and I can’t imagine I’ll be writing essays in Spanish to my patients one day down the line.

So, this realization has somewhat demotivated me from pursuing the language. I think to be honest with myself, I’d much rather pursue a biotech or comp sci minor as I’ve always been super intrigued by those studies. Though it seems like I’ve answered myself here, I just wanted to check in with the Pre-Health community and ask if taking Spanish for all four years would provide me a significant competitive advantage. After all, gaining acceptance to med school and pursuing a medical career is my top priority, and if taking Spanish throughout college will greatly help my chances of getting into med school I'll happily do it.

For whoever read all of that, I appreciate you!

I'm double majoring MCDB and Spanish. Never thought Spanish would help me to get into med school, I'm doing it because love the language/culture. Do whatever you enjoy the most

 

[EdgeTrimmer]

Spanish is essentially required by some schools, like UCLA, fyi.

Agree, Spanish skills definitely adds value to the application at several schools. My kid was asked about his Spanish skills by couple of interviewers and he was told that they have lot of Spanish speaking patients and value the skill. He didn't take any classes in college (and not a native speaker) but he did an immersion program and worked as an interpreter at a free clinic. That was his primary clinical volunteering.

 

[ad5858]

Just want to say thanks for all of the responses–I've decided to continue teaching myself Spanish from a practical standpoint and drop the class to pursue something I'm more interested. Thanks everyone!!! Such an amazing resource and community.