Medical Students as Medical Spanish Standardized Patients for Peer-to-Peer Communication Skills Practice and Feedback

With the growing Hispanic population in the US and shortage of Spanish-speaking physicians, language barriers in health care persist. Training Spanish-speaking medical students as Standardized Patients (SPs) offers a promising strategy to enhance Medical Spanish communication skills and cultural competence among mainland US medical students. This module assesses the effectiveness of training medical students to serve as Spanish-speaking SPs to support Medical Spanish education.

The module was implemented in two phases. In Phase 1, 16 Spanish-speaking medical students from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine were trained as Medical Spanish SPs. Their confidence in SP tasks was evaluated pre- and posttraining using a Likert scale (0 = no confidence, 4 = complete confidence) and analyzed with Wilcoxon signed-rank test. In Phase 2, trained SPs conducted simulated virtual interactions with mainland medical students (n = 18). Postprogram surveys evaluated the mainland students' perceptions of SP performance (0 = poor, 3 = excellent).

In Phase 1, Medical Spanish SPs' confidence significantly improved pre- to posttraining in performing as SPs (median score 3.0 to 4.0, Z = -2.844, p < .004), providing feedback (median score 3.0 to 4.0, Z = -2.434, p < .015), and other areas. In Phase 2, 100% of mainland students rated SPs' performance as excellent, with 94.4% rating SPs' feedback as excellent.

Training medical students as Spanish-speaking SPs effectively enhanced their skills and confidence as SPs. Mainland students highly valued these interactions. This approach can reduce cultural barriers, improving health care for Spanish-speaking populations.