Abstract
Introduction: Language concordance between doctors and patients and increased matriculation of underrepresented minorities in medical school are commonly cited goals of medical centers and medical schools in addressing health disparities for individuals with limited English proficiency. Pre-medical education may represent a high-yield untapped opportunity to address both through a Spanish Health Topics, or Temas de Salud, course for Latino pre-health students. Methods: The authors implemented a longitudinal course for pre-health, Latino, undergraduate students to prepare them for success in bilingual health careers. The course included educational components of health knowledge, Spanish terminology, Hispanic/Latino sociocultural context, and exposure to medical learning formats presented during monthly sessions spread out over two years. A post-course survey with comfort and knowledge assessments was administered after each one-year cycle of the program. Results: One hundred and sixteen students (57%) out of 203 course-participants responded to the Spanish Health Topics course survey. The student comfort level and self-perceived knowledge about specific health issues increased for both students of native-level Spanish and less advanced fluency, though a larger improvement was noted in several health topics for native speakers. Eighty-five percent of students reported perceiving the class to be useful for their future careers, and 92% of respondents indicated having applied learned concepts in social and/or academic settings outside of class.Discussion: Most students reported benefits of the course. Future studies should focus on a more detailed evaluation of enrolled students’ knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and long-term retention compared to students in a standard premedical path. Temas de Salud may enhance the bilingual, bicultural skillset of Latino underrepresented minorities in medicine, and can be replicated at other institutions.
Highlights
Language concordance between doctors and patients and increased matriculation of underrepresented minorities in medical school are commonly cited goals of medical centers and medical schools in addressing health disparities for individuals with limited English proficiency
Medicina Scholars is an existing program of the Hispanic Center of Excellence (HCOE) at the University of Illinois Chicago - College of Medicine with the goal to increase the overall retention of these students in medical careers and their ability to care for Latino patients
10% of students indicated they had had any previous experience with problem based-learning prior to the Temas de Salud course
Summary
Language concordance between doctors and patients and increased matriculation of underrepresented minorities in medical school are commonly cited goals of medical centers and medical schools in addressing health disparities for individuals with limited English proficiency. Medical centers struggle with the challenge of increasing underrepresented minority representation in their health workforce to better reflect their patient populations. Underrepresented minority populations have reduced access to primary care and specialty health providers. Recent national data shows that 64% of the U.S limited English-proficient population is Spanish-speaking, whereas all other languages each comprise between 1-6% [5]. There are considerably fewer Latino physicians compared to the growing number of Latino patients. A recent study showed that in the past 30 years, the number of Latino U.S physicians per 100,000 people has declined by 22% [4]
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