Student-Led Medical Mandarin Summer Course for Medical Students With Existing Mandarin Fluency

In regions with significant Mandarin-speaking populations, language discordance in health care poses considerable challenges. Previous studies have shown that patients with language-concordant providers had higher ratings of satisfaction and trust. Despite this, there is a shortage of Mandarin-speaking primary care physicians in California. Thus, it is imperative for medical schools to offer education in medical Mandarin.

We implemented a medical Mandarin summer course at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. The course targeted medical students with existing Mandarin fluency and used a flipped classroom model, spanning three sessions focusing on medical history, symptomatology, and medical conditions. Sessions consisted of a 2-hour interactive Zoom class starting with an interactive presentation to practice Mandarin medical terminology and cultural competency learned at home. Students were then paired in breakout rooms to practice patient interviewing. Pre- and postcourse evaluations were given to assess language confidence (Likert scale) and competence (graded terminology exam).

Seventeen students participated in the course and had increased ratings in comfort in taking a medical history in Mandarin (p = .001) and cultural competency (p = .05), as well as increased exam scores (p =.01), when comparing pre- and postcourse evaluations.

Adding medical language training to existing medical school curricula can cultivate a more linguistically competent health care workforce, ultimately improving patient satisfaction and outcomes. This pilot course demonstrates a feasible approach to addressing linguistic diversity in health care and can be replicated at other institutions to train language-concordant physicians.