Culture & Language
Cross-cultural encounters are not easy and may be difficult for healthcare students (and professionals) who are concentrating on clinical practice skills and must now add the additional, often transparent and unrecognizable confusion of cultural differences.
As a student in Nuestra Comunidad Nuestra Salud, you will have direct experience with Mexican-origin clients and learn about the connection between culture and health behaviors. To help prepare you for your community experiences, you will be instructed in general cultural competency principles and specific cultural considerations for working with the Mexican-origin population. Guided reflection will help you understand your experience in a cultural context. What you learn in this "real world" experience can prepare you to be more effective in other cross-cultural encounters you will have as a health professional.
Each student is instructed in general linguistic competence principles that serve as a guideline for working with clients who speak different languages, or have different levels of literacy. In Nogales, many of the clients and community members do speak Spanish and some not speak English. Nuestra Comunidad Nuestra Salud welcomes students regardless of Spanish skill.
If you are fluent or have some Spanish language proficiency, you will have the opportunity to develop your language skills in a clinical setting as well as in the community. If you have limited or no Spanish skills, you will learn strategies for providing care to limited English-speaking patients regardless of your own level of language skill, and apply those skills by working with the promotoras as interpreters. Optional Spanish conversation practice with bilingual staff can be arranged for those students who are interested.