Bridge Builiding

Ryan Ungaro

Mount Sinai serves a large Spanish-speaking patient population. This becomes very evident during your first two years at Mount Sinai on hospital rotations for the Art and Science of Medicine (ASM) clinical skills course and at EHHOP, the student-run clinic for patients without health insurance. Spanish language skills are extremely valuable in clinical medicine so two friends and I sought to create a way for students to learn medical Spanish. We first reached out to bilingual faculty members with the help of the Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs (CMCA) to conduct workshops on taking a medical history in Spanish. There was such strong student interest in these sessions that we decided to work on creating a full medical Spanish course. We were able to get funding from CMCA, the Alumni Association and outside foundations to hire professional Spanish teachers. We worked with the ASM directors to design a curriculum that paralleled the material of the clinical skills course and focused on teaching Spanish most necessary for the medical interview. Over the past 3 years, the Medicina en Español program has provided medical Spanish courses to over 200 students in the first and second year classes and is now fully funded by the medical school. We have also worked with the Morchand Center to create a standardized patient scenario in Spanish so that students can practice and receive feedback on their Spanish skills. The creation Medicina en Español is a great example of how Mount Sinai supports student initiatives.