Harvard Medical School provides medical language training to support students as they pursue clinical training, research, and service opportunities in different cultural contexts in Boston and abroad.
The goals of the Medical Language Program are to equip medical students with language skills to provide language-concordant and culturally-humble care with diverse patient populations and to promote awareness of language barriers in achieving health equity.
Courses
HMS students: Contact ose@hms.harvard.edu for detailed information on course enrollment and schedules.
Longitudinal Medical Language Courses
HMS faculty members offer intermediate-level medical language courses to 1st and 3rd year students. Classes are held weekly during one or two semesters, either during the fall semester or during both fall and spring semesters. Course content focuses on the consolidation of oral language skills in the clinical encounter and cultural sensitivity when working with patients who speak these languages.
- Intermediate Medical French (LN709), fall
- Intermediate Medical Mandarin (LN701), fall and spring
- Intermediate Medical Portuguese (LN703), fall
- Intermediate Medical Spanish (LN705), fall and spring
- Advanced Medical Spanish (LN707), fall and spring
If you are not at the intermediate level of the languages listed above, you can visit this list of Language Learning Resources to improve your skills.
Students have the opportunity to pursue clinical clerkships in countries where these languages are spoken.
Intensive Medical Spanish (ME518M.41A)
This 4-credit course is designed for beginner and intermediate Spanish-speaking 3rd or 4th year medical students. It is offered as a full-time, 4-week elective course in September and October. Instructors from Latin America teach the course and students interact with native speakers through one-on-one conversations daily. The intensive class model is offers the fastest and most efficient way to improve the oral medical Spanish skills of students. By the end of the course, students can conduct a basic medical examination in Spanish.
For students who wish to participate in a Spanish-language clinical training experience in Latin America, ME518M.41 is offered each month. Students may take one or two months for credit. Prior Spanish fluency or completion of ME518M.41A is required for these clinical rotations. See the list of Clinical Elective Exchange Programs for current rotation sites.
Students interested in these courses should contact the Office of Scholarly Engagement for more information.