Internship & Residency
Medical Spanish
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Dr. Karl Newman
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The United States has always been
a land of immigrants. That's never been truer than today, and interns
and residents currently face the challenges, (and enjoy the rewards),
of serving this multi-ethnic population. However, language barriers
may hamper the ability of care providers to communicate effectively
with patients.
This week, Q Fever!'s I&R
correspondent, Dr. Karl Newman, shares his secrets
for mastering Medical Spanish - in order to better
serve his Spanish-speaking patients.
Hello! Or should
I say "Hola"? In this day and age, with Spanish seemingly
heard everywhere in the hospital, maybe I should say: "Hola".
But if you don't speak Spanish, you won't understand that "Hola"
is actually the Spanish word for "Hello". And you might just
walk away.
That's my point: many interns and
residents don't realize that Spanish is more than just the language
spoken by large numbers of patients, hospital staff, and major league
baseball players.
It's a language spoken by over five
billion people worldwide, more than Greek, Chinese, Swahili, Albanian,
English, and French combined! Not to mention German! And for every English
word, there's a Spanish word that means EXACTLY the same thing, but
ends with a vowel. So, yeah, Spanish is important.
"But," I hear you ask, "how
can I master Spanish?" Ya work crazy hours, and medicine takes
up all that brain-space! Well, that’s just what I said,
until I realized that you don’t have to learn ALL the Spanish
words. Just enough to talk to your patients about their medical problems.
By following my simple steps, you’ll soon be sounding like a native-born
Chinchilla, as people from Argentina call each other. So without
further ado:
Step 1: ¡Don’t
forget the upside down exclamation points!
¿Que
pasa? That's
right! In Spanish, they put an upside down exclamation point at the
beginning of the sentence. So don’t wait until the end of the
sentence to express your anger, surprise, excitement, or whatever emotion
you’re trying to get across.
Before I even start talking, I widen
my eyes, shake my head rapidly from side to side, and suck my breath
in through my teeth … all to express that first, important, upside-down
exclamation point.
I find that Spanish-speaking people
often respond to this by widening their own eyes, clasping their children,
and edging furtively towards the door. It’s all about BODY LANGUAGE!
Step 2: ¡Don’t
forget: you already know some Spanish words!
¡Madre
de dios! Yeah,
you heard me. Many common English words are very similar to
Spanish words. Like, as a fer instance, the word “matador”.
Spanish people have adopted this word from English, and now use it commonly
to describe animal handlers who dress like Liberace. Or the English
word “Dorito”, derived from the Spanish word “Dorito”,
meaning “nutritious snack food”.
So don’t sell yourself short.
Once you know a few more Spanish words, you can start translating things
from the English. I often try to put Spanish patients at ease by referring
to myself as "Dr. Nuevo-Hombre", which literally means “Dr.
New-Man”! See … it’s easy!
Step 3: ¡Learn
which letters are pronounced differently!
¡Conjo
de la madre! Hey!
Watch the language, buster! What I'm trying to say is that many Spanish
letters are written the same, but pronounced differently,
from English letters. For example, double "L" is pronounced
like the English "Y." The letter "J" is pronounced
like an "H."
This all becomes pretty straightforward
when you realize that the Spanish alphabet just moves all the pronunciations
five letters to the left. An exception occurs in Spain, where the
letter “s” is pronounced all lispy, like the English sound
“th”. No wonder we beat those candy-asses in the Spanish-American
war!
But I digress. Practicing these sounds,
sometimes incorrectly called "diphthongs," will build up your
platysma, frontalis, splenius capitis, and orbicularis oris …
all head and neck muscles English speakers hardly ever use.
Step 4: ¡Practice,
practice, practice!
¡Ay
caramba!
Sure. You can’t expect to learn a language if you don’t
practice. Watch lots of Spanish soap operas and Speedy Gonzalez reruns
when you’re post-call. Yell back at the TV. If you have a day
off, go to California and work in the fields with migrant farm workers,
many of whom come from Mexico (a MAJOR Spanish-speaking country)! See
movies by the great Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, in which Spanish
women frequently remove their shirts. And when you’re all practiced
up, you’ll want to:
"Just tell 'em
¡El medico Karl
sent usted!"
(¡Just
tell 'em Dr. Karl sent ya!)
