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Soothing Words
Medical students get an emergency course in Spanish.
(Updated Friday, July 23, 2004, 8:51 AM)
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Six medical students in Fresno put four weeks of Spanish courses to the test Thursday by trying to converse with mock patients about their illnesses.
Students asked questions such as, "Cuántas veces tienes que ir al baño?" How many times do you go to the bathroom?
Then they provided advice to treat asthma, diarrhea and other problems.
The mock patients then graded each of the students on how well they communicated.
The exam was the end of a crash course for medical students who said they see a need for Spanish because the Latino population is so large in California.
"The goal is to provide better appreciative health-care services on behalf of the Latino population," said Dr. Adriana Padilla, undergraduate director of the University of California at San Francisco Fresno Undergraduate Medical Education program.
About 32% of Fresno County residents speak Spanish at home, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
The program, founded in 1999, is for second-year medical students. A majority of them attend medical schools at UC San Francisco, UC Irvine and UCLA.
It's also a way to recruit students to train at UCSF Fresno's Undergraduate Medical Education Program.
Each of the students learned phrases related to the lungs, heart and stomach as well as gynecological problems.
Students last week went on a scavenger hunt to the Mexican Consulate, a Latino market and a botanica to learn about herbs that some Hispanics use for treating ailments such as stomach pain, Padilla said.
Thursday, one student stumbled with the questions and burst into laughter after he had to ask a mock patient about diarrhea.
Matt Messerschmidt, 24, of UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley, asked 18-year-old Graciela Reyes whether her stool specimen was watery.
He later suggested she eat bananas, toast and rice as part of her diet until she felt better.
Messerschmidt said he enjoyed the course and hopes to continue improving his Spanish.
"It's a good program," he said. "It gets your feet wet."
Bobby Tsang, a 23-year-old medical student at UCLA, had to diagnose an 11-month-old boy who wouldn't stop smiling or squirming while in Tsang's arms.
Joshua kept reaching for Tsang's stethoscope.
Joshua's parents, Judith and Ramon Santoyo, played along, telling Tsang the baby had problems breathing at night.
Tsang prescribed Albuterol and Allegra to help the family keep asthma symptoms under control.
Tsang says the program was more like a refresher course.
"I had about four years in high school. I haven't said a word of Spanish at all [since then]," Tsang said.
"In terms of medical knowledge, I have to learn a lot."
