UMass Center to Offer Spanish Course for Healthcare Professionals

SPRINGFIELD — A new course coming this fall to the UMass Center at Springfield will help healthcare professionals enhance their language skills. “Spanish for Healthcare Professions” will be offered at the center beginning in September.

“We have a significant Latino population in Western Massachusetts, and it’s essential that healthcare professionals be able to communicate with these residents,” said Daniel Montagna, director of Operations at the UMass Center. “Through a collaboration with the UMass Amherst Spanish and Portuguese program, we’re hoping to offer this as well as other healthcare and business language courses at the center in the future.”

The course is designed to meet the needs of healthcare professionals who wish to increase fluency in Spanish through written and oral practices. The class is aimed at students with an intermediate level of Spanish (the equivalent of four or five semesters of college Spanish or of four years of high-school Spanish). Heritage speakers who can communicate in Spanish but want to develop a knowledge of the professional terminology of the health professions may also benefit from the class.

An informational session is scheduled for Thursday, May 25 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the UMass Center in Tower Square. The instructor will be available, and potential students will be able to register for the class. For more information, contact Jayne Reino at (413) 885-4716 or jereino@spansport.umass.edu.