Rocio Aguilar and Rebeca Bosques walked into Room 230 in the Interdisciplinary Research & Education Building at the University of North Texas Health Science Center on Feb. 20 and set up their laptops.
The women, who are both second-year medical students at the university’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, opened up their slideshow presentation and waited for their classmates to arrive.
Aguilar and Bosques serve as the Spanish curriculum directors of the Latino Medical Student Association, an organization that hosts medical Spanish classes for students within the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.
As it hit 5 p.m., a wave of people arrived one by one — the room filled with over 30 medical students that day.
Aguilar and Bosques exchanged greetings in Spanish and began going through a list of medical phrases for the students to learn:
What medical conditions do you have? ¿Qué condiciones médicas tiene?
Have you ever been hospitalized? ¿Alguna vez ha sido hospitalizado?
The medical students repeated the phrases and a smile appeared on Aguilar and Bosques’ faces. For the women, these classes serve as an opportunity to tackle health care barriers that exist for Spanish-speaking communities across Texas.
When navigating the health care system, 44% of Hispanic people generally have worse health outcomes than other people in the U.S. because of communication problems resulting from language or cultural differences, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
“We want to make sure that whenever our classmates are going out to either the community here in Fort Worth or traveling abroad, that they’re able to follow a Spanish medical interview with their patients,” said Bosques.
The medical Spanish classes were launched in 2021 by the Latino Medical Student Association, an organization that also works to provide a voice for underrepresented communities, connect future Latino physicians and promote retention of Latino students. Aguilar and Bosques have led the Spanish classes since 2023.
Instead of diving into the Spanish language, the classes are designed to be interactive and encourage students to take what they learn and do more learning on their own.
“The first thing we do is review the body parts in Spanish,” Aguilar said. “After that, we go over the interviews, like a regular patient-doctor discussion, and try and interact with the students as well to help fill in the blanks.”
The classes have had more than 200 participants since they launched.
Bosques’ experience as a native Spanish-speaker working in the health care industry motivated her to lead the classes. Bosques has volunteered at clinics in Fort Worth on several occasions.
She has been called on to translate medical terms for patients who only speak Spanish. Almost immediately, the Spanish-speaking patients become more comfortable and their experiences turn out better, said Bosques.
“Seeing how my first language made such a big impact with the community, I just loved what I was doing,” she said. “I want others to feel the same way.”
The medical Spanish classes have also found success across the country. While at a summer conference in Chicago for the Student Osteopathic Medical Association, Bosques started talking about the Spanish classes she was leading. Students from the DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harrogate, Tennessee, were interested in tuning in virtually.
Brenda Godoy, president of the Latino Medical Student Association, put together a trial run using Zoom and recorded their presentation. It was a success, said Bosques.
“It’s just really great to see how outside of Texas this could be really useful,” she said. “I’m just imagining that in a place like Tennessee, there’s not a lot of Spanish speakers represented in their school, but they do see that there is a need.”
The Latino Medical Student Association plans to continue the medical Spanish classes in the future and hopes to expand them to the other colleges at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
David Moreno is the health reporter for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports on X.
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