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Photo by Reed HutChinson
Rosa Calva teaches paramedic trainees what to say in Spanish to calm people down during an emergency. |
She created language class that saves lives
BY RACHEL CHAMPEAU
UCLA Today
Rosa I. Calva loves a challenge. When she first began working as an office manager at the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care, an organization that trains paramedic students in Southern California, she noticed that many of them didn't speak Spanish.
As a first-generation Mexican American, she realized that this was a major barrier in communicating with many patients in the field, especially because more than 4.2 million Latinos reside in Los Angeles County alone, according to the 2000 census.
Even though this was outside the sphere of her job responsibilities, Calva was undaunted. With the help of faculty at the center, she developed in 2001 the first course in the country to teach paramedic students medical Spanish.
For her efforts, Calva recently won a research award at the National Association for EMS Educators Conference, where she presented research that showed that more than 40% of the non-Spanish-speaking paramedic students taking the medical Spanish class saw an improvement in their ability to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients. Her research was published last year in the Prehospital Emergency Care Journal.
“By communicating more effectively, paramedics develop a better rapport with their Spanish-speaking patients, which can only improve the level of care,” said Calva, now a client services manager at the prehospital care center.
The eight-hour mandatory course helps paramedics with pronunciation, teaches them awareness of cultural and gender differences, and encourages them to communicate with respect and compassion. Students learn to understand and ask critical assessment questions in Spanish such as, “What medications are you taking?” and “Where does it hurt?” Paramedic students also receive a handy pocket guide of key Spanish phrases for quick reference on the job.
“Taking the class has increased my confidence level in communicating with non-English-speaking patients,” paramedic Dean Rush said. “I'm also less intimidated about the process of learning another language now.”
Calva teaches the medical Spanish class through the UCLA-Daniel Freeman Paramedic Program, which is part of the center. Passionate about the benefits of bilingual communication, she now wants to offer the medical Spanish program to other paramedic organizations and hopes to develop similar programs in other languages spoken in Southern California, such as Armenian and Chinese.
Calva credits her parents, who immigrated to the United States in 1968 from Mexico, with helping her develop an appreciation for her language and culture. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology from UCLA in 1995 before she began working at the center.
Ready to take on new challenges, Calva was recently accepted into the master's degree program in public health at UCLA. “My motto is to keep asking questions and continuing to learn,” she said.
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