Spanish for Nurses

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Hi

I work in PICU in the Bronx and many of my patients are Spanish Spaeaking. Although we have both in person translators and translator services via phone, there ar emany times where I would like to speak to the family or the patient personally. I would like to participate in day to day conversation as wel as medical discussions.

Does anyone have any suggestions on Spanish programs that are affordable and worthwhile? I speak minimal spanish and would like to improve and excell in my language skills. Internet programs as well as college course would work well, just would like something that is affordable.

Thanks

Jacki

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Specializes in NVRN, ICU, Critical Care.

Enroll in a community college spanish course, at a college that offers Rosetta Stone. NOT for the course, but for the unlimited use of Rosetta Stone via their languages center. The one course would be way cheaper than actually buying the software....

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Specializes in Med Surg, Ortho, Acute Care Rehab.

Get a spanish partner to practice with...:) That works all the time...

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I took a community ed class to improve my skills in preparation for a mission trip to central america. It costed about $85 in my area.

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Why should the nurse go out of her way to speak spanish by enrolling in community college or spending money on software?? The facility provides translator service like Cyraphone or perhaps list of eligible certified translators within the hospital to contact for translation OR how about the population LEARN english if they have been here (legally, or not) for a while? (>5yrs should be sufficient to at least communicate in english)

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Specializes in NVRN, ICU, Critical Care.
Why should the nurse go out of her way to speak spanish by enrolling in community college or spending money on software?? The facility provides translator service like Cyraphone or perhaps list of eligible certified translators within the hospital to contact for translation OR how about the population LEARN english if they have been here (legally, or not) for a while? (>5yrs should be sufficient to at least communicate in english)

I don't think she HAS to go out of her way to speak Spanish, she WANTS to learn it for professional and personal use. I can only speak English, but I think it's a little too pompous to establish a law that citizens speak English in five years of living in the U.S. However, such citizens should not expect to be completely understood all the time.

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Specializes in Holistic and Aesthetic Medicine.

I think there are some good podcasts on itunes that you could listen to in order to improve.

Here's a CD Rom course that I've thought of doing but haven't gotten around to yet...

http://www.amazon.com/Salud-set-Spanish-Health-Professionals/dp/0300103638/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1314754328&sr=8-2

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There was a thread recently on this exact topic that had some super helpful resources posted: definitely do a board search to find it. I bookmarked it but am not on my computer. NYC is a great place to learn Spanish too. My husband learned from coworkers and now speaks enough to get by well with Spanish speaking patients on the ambulance.

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Why should the nurse go out of her way to speak spanish by enrolling in community college or spending money on software?? The facility provides translator service like Cyraphone or perhaps list of eligible certified translators within the hospital to contact for translation OR how about the population LEARN english if they have been here (legally, or not) for a while? (>5yrs should be sufficient to at least communicate in english)

Did you actually read the original post?

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Why should the nurse go out of her way to speak spanish by enrolling in community college or spending money on software?? The facility provides translator service like Cyraphone or perhaps list of eligible certified translators within the hospital to contact for translation OR how about the population LEARN english if they have been here (legally, or not) for a while? (>5yrs should be sufficient to at least communicate in english)

Why? Because she apparently WANTS to!

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I have been trying to teach myself Spanish, too. I use Visual Link Spanish. It is a computer program with three levels. Level I gets you speaking everyday sentences in about 10 minutes and makes you feel like you can really learn it. Levels II and III go more into verbs and tenses. It is "always" on sale on their website. There are free demo lessons to check it out. I think the money is well, well worth it (I am on Level II). The site is learnspanishtoday.com. Cheaper when compared to a community college class, and you can review the lessons again and again, unlike a class that will end. It really helps if you have someone to practice with/on.

I'm sure your Spanish speaking patients will appreciate your attempts to communicate with them.

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I have an app for my itouch. It's called Pocket Medical Spanish. It was cool until now. For some reason I cannot get it to launch. I downloaded it a little while back and played with it. Well, it's supposed to give you phrases in english/spanish. It will allow you to show the phrase of what you want to say to the patient in large letters in spanish, or, you can touch a button and it will voice the phrase in spanish.

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