Teaching Medical Spanish Alongside the Medical History: Evaluation of a Decade-Old Peer-Led Medical Spanish Program
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65539/1fhbtd24Keywords:
Medical Spanish, language education, peer-led curriculum, cultural competency, OSCEAbstract
This study evaluates a peer-led Medical Spanish program at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine that enrolls more than half of first-year students and is tightly integrated with the English medical history curriculum. Using pre- and post-course assessments of comfort, cultural competency, and listening/reading comprehension, as well as an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for intermediate and above students, the authors found significant gains in language comfort and comprehension across most levels. OSCE results showed high rates of complete history-taking and strong ratings for pronunciation, vocabulary, conversational fluidity, and cultural awareness. The program illustrates how student-led, longitudinal language training can enhance clinical communication with Spanish-speaking patients, while highlighting the need to further strengthen cultural content and assessment tools.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Rebecca Feltman-Frank, Ester Masati, James Myall, Lucas Tozzi, Amy Blair, Lucia Garcia (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
