Programs Description / Spanish for Health Sciences

This program provides students with the opportunity to explore health care in a developing country while furthering their Spanish language skills and gain an understanding of the life and culture of Costa Rica. ICDS six-week program provides health professionals and university students in the area of health with the necessary language proficiency to enable them to work and interact with Spanish speaking patients and their families, as well as with colleagues in a Spanish-speaking environment.

The program consists of two components, linguistic and topical, to facilitate the development of vocabulary in the health and medical field, and the improvement of the students’ ability to communicate correctly and effectively in Spanish.

The topical content of the program discusses the most relevant aspects of the health system in Costa Rica and will be covered in a 30-hour course (i.e., 2 credits) distributed in two weekly sessions of conferences, exercises, site visits to clinics, hospitals, and other related sites, and a workshop on the topic of the week.

The linguistic component will consist of a total of 60 hours of intensive Spanish (i.e., 4 credits) with the general objectives of training students to speak fluently in Spanish, preparing them to interview patients, complete patients’ files, elaborate medical reports, read texts of medical relevance effectively.