Spanish 3H (for students pursuing careers in health care)

 

Contact:  Glynis Cowell, PhD  gscowell@email.unc.edu

Location:  Romance Language Department

Participants: Undergraduates who qualify for Spanish 3 level course. Interested students must contact Dr. Cowell to enroll in the course

 

It is easier in many ways to say what Spanish 3H is not than to adequately explain what it is.  Spanish 3H is not a course in medical vocabulary, nor is it a class in medical procedure.  It does not purport to teach students “what Hispanic culture is,” nor does it claim that students will leave the course knowing more about the health care system in America than they did when they began the semester.  What the course does do, however, is expose students to the idea that their interactions with their future Latino patients will be greatly informed by their own culture.  To undergraduates, many of whom have never left North Carolina, the concept that their culture is not universal is almost revolutionary.  In addition to this self-reflective approach to the teaching of culture, Spanish 3H also stresses that good communication between patient and care provider can only occur in an environment of trust, openness, and mutual understanding.

The course, therefore, strives not to teach a set of rules and regulations, but rather to open students to the concept that health and culture are inextricably linked, and that without this realization, communication between patients and their health care providers will be compromised necessarily.  Through reading the histories of the countries contained in the textbook, Mundo 21, the articles on the course website, watching the videos of immigrants now serving as health care providers in the US, and interacting with the Latino community at their APPLES (community service) sites, the students gradually learn the importance of this kind of communication.