Customer Reviews

Spanish for Health Care Professionals

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A blurb on the front of William Harvey's _Spanish for Health Care Professionals_ notes that this book is designed for communicating with people whose only language is Spanish. This book is also designed for people who have little or no skills in Spanish to learn something of that language.

The first chapter, which is entitled "Basic Information," introduces the reader to the Spanish alphabet, so that the reader may learn how to pronounce Spanish words, and to some basic expressions such as "Good morning" and "How are you?"

In subsequent chapters the reader learns the names for the parts of the body, some terms/phrases for admission into a hospital, some terms/phrases for an accident scene, and some terms/phrases for a pregnancy. These chapters are followed by three more which teach terms/phrases according to three hypothetical patients of varied ages. At the end of the book is what the writer called a word/expression finder,an English/Spanish and a Spanish/English dictionary.

However the reader should be aware that the terminology discussed is limited in its depth. A quick comparison of this book with _First Responder_ by David Schottke and others shows that terms such as "abdomen" and "anaphylactic shock" are not covered by William Harvey's book. Even so, as the front cover blurb said, this book should be very useful to people who have little or no skills in Spanish when speaking to Spanish speaking patients.

My wife bought this book for me, and it was a Godsend. Chapter lessons are bite sized and arranged in logical/relational order; interpersonal phrases, cultural issues, admission, discharge, fundamental anatomy, hygiene issues, medication issue, etc.

In addition to these categories the book immediately teaches word pronunciation and basic sentence construction...in English sentence format. Perhaps this may sound backwards to a Spanish-speaking listener/patient; however, my message was immediately understood and acknowledged.

Bottom line, this book is an excellent jump off point for someone (like me) serving a high volume of Spanish-only speaking patients.

This book is not intended to be a quick reference guide - it's meant to be an instructional tool, and is a very good one. If you're a motivated learner and you have some time to devote to studying Spanish, this is a great way to start. I started off a few years ago using William Harvey's First Edition of this book, which was really helpful, but this updated version is even better. It addresses several different types of diagnoses, treatments, and procedures, and uses gender/age-specific scenarios to teach vocabulary and new tearms. Beside each new Spanish word, you get the phonetic pronunciation in English, which is very helpful to keep you from botching the pronunciation of Spanish words. The author goes the extra mile in giving you little "Notas" about Hispanic culture and how it impacts health care. This book has been incredibly helpful to me as a health care provider. I highly recommend it!

This book is extremely practical for my interactions with spanish-speaking patients. I work at a hospital and we see a large number of Hispanic/Mexican-American individuals. This book has been IMMEDIATELY applicable and helps me to be more effective. Patients appreciate my obvious effort even though my pronunciation and grammer isn't perfect! Thank you to William Harvey for writing a book applicable to ALL types of healthcare professionals, including social workers.

I'm other language challenged but this book makes picking up and using Spanish in my role as an RN easy and effective.

I was dissapointed to find that this book had very little medical terminolgy. I already am proficient in the language and just needed some medical terms and vocabulary to help me in my work. I definitely don't recommend this book for those that aren't starting from the very beginning (alphabet, numbers, etc...)

I've review quite a few spanish cd's so I'm not new to this. In general, my reviews have been fair. I will update this as I get around to using the book more.

Packaging: Nothing fancy. Book w/ sleeve inside w/ 3 audio cd's. The 3rd ed of Harvey book is twice the length and with of 2nd w/o out addition of much more info...so that's it's roughly the size of 8.5x11 sheet of paper. This change makes the book no longer pocketable and makes putting it into a labcoat/whitecoat impossible. They should have just kept the size as small as before.

Book iself: I think it has more useful medical content in specific clinical situations than it's competitor, "Spanish for Healthcare Provider by Rios/McGraw-Hill" book. The Harvey book doens't have frivilous idioms/expression that the rios book has. Very focused.

Audio CD content: I'll be frank. The CD is a disaster. First CD has basic intro to spanish (nothing very medical related). I would have rather they devoted all 3 to medical spanish since I bought the package to listen in car. 2nd and 3rd CD has some medical terms, vocab, etc. Unlike the Rios CD in which the CD contents adhere to sections w/in the Rios book, I didn't quite see a clear correlation between the Harvey chapters and the cd. Negative side of Rios book is that it only says english word and then spanish word once...but the pauses between english/spanish is appropriate. Good thing about Harvey book is it read the english word. Then reads the spanish word, and repeats the spanish word.

Now the most ANNOYING thing about the Harvey book...which makes me not recommend annoyone buy it until the publisher makes a change, is that it'll say:
1. ENGLISH WORD
***SILENCE*** (anyone between 3-10 s...way too long)
2. SPANISH WORD
***B-E-E-P** (sounds like a Tele monitor beep, or IV pole beep)
3. and then repeat the SPANISH WORD.

What genius thought of the "BEEP"? It's almost the same annoying beep u'd hear in a Tele bed in the ICU or if an an IV pole was clogged and beeping. That 3-10s pause is one end of the extreme. On 2nd half of CD3, there's a vocab section in which narrator reads english and spanish word once. However, interval between the words is now only 1s...yikes..I couldn't even keep up w/ the speed. Talk about extremes. Totally ruins the CD. Whoever was the producer of the CD totally overlooked the format of other language CD's where it's usually:

1. English word 2. Silence for about 2s 3. Spanish word. 4. Silence for about another 2s. 5. Repeat spanish word.

One good thing is that Itunes recognizes the CD and automatically titles the tracks.

I'd give the book a 4 star...and the CD a 0 star...so my 2 star rating stands. The production side of the CD really tarnished Harvey's good book.

This book is very good for assessment and admission questions. It goes system by system and gives you translations.

It is not for quick reference when speaking to a patient. I find it frustrating to look through the book when I want to ask a simple question, or need to give a bit of information. I have found myself using translation software on the WWW when communicating with Spanish speaking patients and their families as opposed to using this book.

This book has become invaluable in my ER setting. We have a small Hispanic population which is growing with more Spanish speaking patients. This book helps with basic Admission questions and follows up with easily understood medical questions. Would recommend highly.

I am a medical resident and recently bought William Harvey's "Spanish for Health Care Professionals". A wonderful way to learn phrases and basic Spanish skills to communicate with a Spanish-speaking patient. I would recommend this tutorial for anyone willing to put in the time to begin learning another language. It will help you be a better health care provider for a sometimes-underserved patient population.