.jpg)
MCG nursing students put Spanish skills to work
by Sharron Walls
The patients started lining up two hours before the doors opened at 6 p.m. Inside, volunteers, including MCG medical and nursing students, are setting up tables as stations to take vital signs, stocking exam rooms, taking inventory of medications, placing translators.
This is the Clinica Latina, held the third Wednesday of every month at the St. Vincent DePaul Clinic in the Salvation Army building on Greene Street. Most of the patients come for rechecks of chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and acid reflux disease. For many, the language barrier precludes a regular family physician.
It was one of several occasions for nursing students in Dr. Jo-Ellen McDonough’s “Spanish for Healthcare Providers” class to practice and test what they’ve learned this summer.
“Most of these students have a really decent background in one or two languages,” said Dr. McDonough, “and they know the academics, but it is critical to have opportunities to apply that knowledge in heath care settings.”
-crop.jpg)
The
elective undergraduate course is an intensive, interactive way for health
professionals to quickly learn practical Spanish and cultural awareness
useful in health care environments. Classwork focuses on medical vocabulary
used in taking basic workups and histories, charting, giving procedures and
treatments, making appointments and filling out forms.
Just as important, cultural perspectives central to Spanish-speaking populations are integrated into the curriculum, including health views, beliefs and concerns that may be unfamiliar to American practitioners.
Services for the growing number of Latino residents in the CSRA continue to be a pressing need. “We can’t take all our patients that come sometimes,” said Nancy Schear, a nurse practitioner and executive director of the Clinica Latina. In operation for nearly two years, the clinic is sponsored by the only community-based nonprofit service organization for Latinos in the area, the Asociación Latina de Servicios del CSRA, Inc., and relies completely on volunteers.
“It is so beneficial to actually get out and practice when we’re still in school,” said Carrie Parsons, a senior nursing student. “There are Latino patients in the area and there has to be somebody to communicate with them. I just want to prepare myself with the language so I can talk with them.”
Fellow senior Rosalie Huntington plans to move to Florida, where there is a large Hispanic population, and both students say they may live for a time in a Spanish-speaking country.
“We talked in the class about options like missions and the Peace Corps and things of that nature,” said Dr. McDonough, who lived in the Panama Canal Zone for four years early in her nursing career.
Fluent in Spanish, Dr. McDonough taught the “Spanish for Healthcare Providers” course previously through Augusta State University continuing education and as part of graduate studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, but this summer’s offering was its first at MCG. The turnaround time was quick: Discussions about the course began in February, approval came in April, and students were conjugating verbs by mid-May.
Even before classes started, Dr. McDonough was looking for clinical sites and practice opportunities for students. She personally recruited a dozen native Spanish speakers from eight countries for two classroom “warm-up” visits. The variety of accents and dialects made the students “nervous wrecks” during their first encounter with the foreign-language “patients,” but they were prepared when the class first volunteered at the Clinica Latina in June.
The big test came on July 14, when Dr. McDonough’s six students were joined by four more taking the same class at MCG’s School of Nursing in Athens under the direction of Dr. Frances Martin. The students spent the day treating patients at the Hispanic Health Fair at one of the largest perennial nurseries in the United States, Layman’s Nursery in Trenton, S.C. The fair lasted two hours past the expected 3 p.m. closing time to accommodate 217 agricultural workers.
“It was fabulous. We were swamped,” said Dr. McDonough. “It was most unusual because of the partnership between the employers and the School of Nursing. The whole thing was driven by the employers. Two of Layman’s owners are registered nurses; that’s clearly why they have such a vested interest in health.”
The course may expand beyond the School of Nursing. One possibility is starting the course in late spring to optimize convenience for other MCG students. The course also may be made available to residents, based on the interest level.
“I’m very, very optimistic,” said Dr. T. Andrew Albritton, associate dean for curriculum in the School of Medicine. “The institution needs it.”