Summer Medical Spanish

January 6th, 2009

Dear Dr. Dienstag and others of the HMS administration,

On December 19th, 2008 it was announced that, due to ongoing budget cuts, over half of the budget would be cut from the HMS summer Spanish programs. This forced the course organizers to cancel the Spanish class offered to rising second year students in the 2009 June-July term. While the organizers hope to hold a combined course in August for both rising second and fourth year students, second year students have been guaranteed neither class availability before the fall term nor enrollment in such a course if it occurs.

During Tuesdays "Scholarship in Medicine" lecture, Dr. ORourke informed students that the essential purpose of the HMS summer experience was to acquire knowledge and skill sets that would help us to develop into expert clinicians. As medical students dedicated both to pursuing excellence in our education and to developing important clinical skills, we believe it necessary to offer a medical Spanish class to rising second year students.

It is well understood that Harvard is forced to make difficult choices concerning funding cuts during the financial crisis, yet we believe that the summer medical Spanish class is essential to the goal of student development. In 2007, the US Census Bureau reported that 34 million people over the age of five speak Spanish as their primary language in the home. In addition, approximately half of all native Spanish speakers surveyed indicated that they did not speak English "very well." (1)

The need for Spanish-speaking professionals in social services industries-especially health care-continues to grow. Therefore, we ask you to reallocate OEP summer funding to the summer medical Spanish budget in order to conduct the class as previously scheduled.


(1) U.S. Census Bureau Newsroom. CB07-FF.14. July 16, 2007. For more information and Spanish language related statistics please see: http://www.census.gov/