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Would it be possible to design a one-semester introductory Spanish course for health-care personnel? Could students learn, in such a short time, to communicate professionally, "in a simple but effective way," with their Spanish-speaking patients? Could they also learn about the Latino population of the United States and, more specifically, about the attitudes toward health and health care that play such an important role in communication between Latino patients and healthcare professionals?1 These are some of the questions I was asked by our School of Nursing when several years ago they approached me about the creation of a course for nursing students and local health-care professionals. My initial response was both enthusiastic and guarded. I was well aware of the need for Anglo health-care professionals who had even a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, but I had misgivings about an elementary language course that would be so short and so specialized. I worried that such a "crash course" might foster more confusion then communication by providing students with what could seem like a barrage of unrelated words and phrases. I also wondered if a brief introduction to only one aspect of Latino culture might not reinforce stereotypes rather than challenge them. I agreed to prepare a pilot course, but stressed its tentative, experimental nature. The first few semesters that I taught the course were indeed tentative and my reactions to it were mixed. The class was allowed to grow too large; there was not a truly adequ te text available; I saw the students o ly once a week for three hours because the nursing faculty felt that their majors could not schedule more frequent meetings. On the other hand, student response was overwhelmingly positive. Not only did my students enjoy the course itself, they were also excited by the results since there were always a few members of the class who were able to use |
