Spanish skills are critical to care.
The need for Spanish/English bilingual health professionals has been proven to be critical in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the U.S. more generally. The Spanish and Portuguese Program and the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing sponsor a certificate program in Spanish and Health designed to equip our graduates to address the health care needs of Spanish-speaking populations. The certificate emphasizes the language and cultural skills needed for professional work in those settings. The training offered by this certificate should serve a broad range of students from a variety of fields—including Spanish, Nursing, Biology, Public Health, Nutrition, Psychology, Kinesiology, pre-med, and translation, among others—who expect to work in a Spanish-speaking health care environment.
Did you grow up speaking Spanish? Your language and cultural knowledge are exactly what patients and health care teams need. Maybe you've already helped family members at the doctor's office. This certificate builds on what you bring, adding medical vocabulary and professional communication skills.
Certificate Requirements
Download a certificate planning worksheet here.
Spanish Language (1 course):
Span 311 Advanced Grammar (offered Fall and Spring) OR 314 Spanish for Heritage Speakers (offered every Spring)
Spanish for Medical Professions (1 course):
Span 356 – Spanish for Medical Professions (offered Spring & Summer)
Cultural Diversity in Healthcare (one course):
One course that helps understand diverse values and expectations around health and illness. The selection of this course should receive the approval of the student’s certificate advisor. Here are some examples of classes students have taken in the past:
- Anthro 208 – Human Ecology
- Comp Lit 552 – Medical Interpreting Online
- Educ 201 – Social Issues in Intergroup Relations
- Food Sci 102 – World Food Habits
- Nursing 212 – Cultural Diversity in Health & Illness
- Nutrition 572 – Community Nutrition
- Nutrition 597K – Culture, Nutrition and Health
- Public Health 302 – Community Development and Health Education
- Public Health 390E – Understanding Health Disparities
- Psych 391SS – Prejudice and Intergroup Relations
- Social 442 – Sociology of Medicine
- Social 481 – Sociology of Mental Health
Culture and Society of the Hispanic World (one course):
One course that helps understand the culture, society, or history of the Hispanic world, broadly understood to include Spain, Latin America, or U.S. Latinxs/es/os/as. We highly recommend taking a class in Spanish for this option. Classes in other departments should be approved by the certificate director.
Below are Spanish classes offered for SPRING 27 that fulfill this requirement. Note that many of these also fulfill GenEd requirements!
| Course number | Title | Credits |
| SPAN306 | The Sounds of Spanish (formerly Spanish Pronunciation) | 3 |
| SPAN321 | Cultural Conflicts and Modernity in the Literatures of Spain (AL) | 4 |
| SPAN323 | Transformation and Imagination in Contemporary Latin American Literature (AL; DG) | 4 |
| SPAN386 | Latin American Cinemas | 3 |
| SPAN390W | Trips to the Other World (AL; Taught in English) | 4 |
| SPAN415 | Culture and Civilization of Spain | 3 |
| SPAN456 | Spanish Translation for Community Health Services (only if not counting towards experiential component). | 3 |
| SPAN597LB | Special Topics- Latinidad and Indigeneity | 3 |
**Please seek approval for any courses outside of our program with the certificate director.
Experiential Component (2 or 3 credits of a clinical practicum, internship, coop, volunteer, or service-learning experience):
An experiential component that affords students the opportunity to engage with individuals, institutions, community organizations, or agencies that focus on efforts to improve the delivery of health services to the Spanish-speaking community, here or abroad. This component should take place after fulfilling the language requirement so that the student can actively use Spanish during the internship. If this component is not a course for University credit, students should, with the help of their certificate advisors, develop a supervised internship or independent studies for university credit.
Many of our students take Spanish 456 - Spanish Translation for Community Health Services to fulfill this requirement. This is offered every Spring semester.
Examples include:
- An internship with MedicZero
- Assignment to a clinical site in Nursing 489T in Holyoke or Springfield whose primary caseload is Spanish-speaking clients
- A study abroad experiential program (nursing course # in development) in with a homestay component, clinical or social service site shadowing, and cultural immersion elements.
- An internship in a Spanish-speaking community in Massachusetts. Students must individually arrange this with a sponsor and register for Univ 398 or Span 398.
- A relevant service-learning course (to be approved by certificate director)
Most of the certificate requirements will be available for Summer 2027 on U+!