Manual for (Relatively) Painless Medical Spanish: A Self-Teaching Course

I found this to be the best book out there to quickly learn medical spanish. It sounds like the two reviewers listed here who gave this book bad marks are advertising their own products and probably didn't even read the book. Not only is the book excellent to learn basic medical spanish but it was written by a doctor who also has excellent examples of spanish use in medical practice. How many of medical spanish books have been written by a physician? Very few. As a practicing physician who sees many Spanish-speaking patients this book is a must. Again, the two reviewers who gave this book low marks, took the examples out of the context since most of the book is geared towards examples in the medical setting. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in learning medical spanish without any painkillers.

I'm a medical student without any prior Spanish, and I did find this book to be a relatively painless way to learn Spanish. Her approach is good because: 1) She interjects humor and her exercises are somewhat funny and therefore more memorable 2) She is not too rigid. She will tell you the correct way of saying something but recognizes that the reader's purpose is to be able to communicate, even if one's grammar isn't perfect (We're not learning to be a translator for the UN). 3) She mixes things up so that one doesn't get bored. For example, her vocabulary lessons are well-interspered throughout the text.Nonetheless, it is difficult to learn medical Spanish from this book alone. I had to consult my wife, who is a Spanish speaker, for feedback about correct pronunciation (which can be somewhat difficult to get out of this book alone). Also, of course, it's difficult to learn without practicing with other people. I short, I think that this book is an extremely worthwhile purchase, but I am looking to supplement it with an audio or CD-ROM purchase and possibly a course.

This book was the single most useful tool I used in order to prepare for clinical rotations in a hospital where 60-75% of patients were primarily Spanish-speaking. I went from being hopeless ("que?") to functionally conversant in a couple of months. The time investment is minimal, about 4-5 hours per week, in order to complete this workbook in 8 weeks. I am recommending it to other medical students and medical residents who wish to acquire language as a tool in their practice with Spanish-speaking patients.

As a language teacher, I am using the book as a tool to learn medical terms to use with patients on a missions trip. I have found it easy to use and extremely practical. It is also humorous which encourages you to keep plugging on. There are some small grammatical errors, but nothing which detracts from the usefulness of the book.

This book actually teaches you all of the things you really do need to know to work with spanish-speaking patients. It is a workbook in which the exercises form the bulk of the text although every now and then she will add some short, information-filled paragraphs. It is this teaching technique that makes this manual so successful. This is not to say that you don't have to work at it but as she claims she makes it relatively painless and even fun. I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with spanish-speaking patients in a medical setting but who are not themselves, spanish speaking.