UA Open Access Publishing Fund / Introduction: Language and cultural barriers are detriments to quality health care. In acute medical
settings, these barriers are more pronounced, which can lead to poor patient outcomes.
Materials and methods: We implemented a longitudinal Spanish-language immersion curriculum
for emergency medicine (EM) resident physicians. This curriculum includes language
and cultural instruction, and is integrated into the weekly EM didactic conference, longitudinal
over the entire 3-year residency program. Language proficiency was assessed at baseline and
annually on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, via an oral exam conducted
by the same trained examiner each time. The objective of the curriculum was improvement of
resident language skills to ILR level 1+ by year 3. Significance was evaluated through repeatedmeasures
analysis of variance.
Results: The curriculum was launched in July 2010 and followed through June 2012 (n=16).
After 1 year, 38% had improved over one ILR level, with 50% achieving ILR 1+ or above. After
year 2, 100% had improved over one level, with 90% achieving the objective level of ILR 1+.
Mean ILR improved significantly from baseline, year 1, and year 2 (F=55, df =1; P,0.001).
Conclusion: Implementation of a longitudinal, integrated Spanish-immersion curriculum is
feasible and improves language skills in EM residents. The curriculum improved EM-resident
language proficiency above the goal in just 2 years. Further studies will focus on the effect of
language acquisition on patient care in acute settings
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/617203 |
| Date | 18 February 2016 |
| Creators | Grall, Kriti H, Panchal, Ashish R, Chuffe, Eliud, Stoneking, Lisa R |
| Contributors | Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Arizona |
| Publisher | Dove Press |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | © 2016 Grall et al. This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). |
| Relation | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4767065/ |
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