There are definite advantages to speaking Spanish. I realized it in dental school, when I was assigned interesting cases simply because no one else in my work group could figure out what those patients from San Francisco’s Mission District were complaining about. Spanish rescued me when I graduated; while many of my classmates stressed over finding people with that perfect class II board lesion, the patients who spoke Spanish came looking for me.

My Spanish background helped me learn French during my dental residency in a Swiss hospital, and it has deepened my enjoyment of English. These days, my wife and I use Spanish as a convenient secret code to say things to each other we don't want our kids to understand—which is motivating them to want to learn it themselves. My patients who overhear me speaking Spanish think I’m a genius (a misunderstanding I am slow to correct).

People who know I speak Spanish are often envious. Every week someone else tells me, "I wish I could learn Spanish." Especially in the Southwest, dentists should learn it. My dental school classmate, Dr. Brent Curtis, considers that knowing Spanish has been a boon for his Mesa, Arizona, practice. "I have a lot of patients who feel more comfortable speaking Spanish than English," he says. "I use Spanish every day."

A knowledge of Spanish is becoming not just a question of convenience, but of pressing practicality. The United States has the world’s fifth largest Spanish-speaking population, after Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Colombia. And the numbers are growing. More than 11 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic, but 19 percent of today’s American toddlers (kids under four) are Hispanic. And in 2005, 15 percent, or 36 million people, will be Hispanic.

Understanding Spanish is a matter of cultural sensitivity. Spanish speakers will also take your attempts to communicate as a sign of personal sensitivity, as well as a clear compliment. Acknowledging your patients’ cultural background can reduce fears and build trust and confidence. Speaking one-on-one also helps preserve patient confidentiality. What’s more, patients will more likely follow treatment plans they understand.

How should a dentist go about picking up some useful Spanish? How-to books can lend a hand. There are a variety of volumes that cover health care-oriented Spanish. Many are grammar books, attempting to teach the basics of Spanish by means of medical terminology. Most, such as Janet E. Meizel’s Spanish for Medical Personnel (El Paso: Skidmore-Roth Publishing, 1993) and Ana Malmow Rajkovic’s Manual for (Relatively) Painless Medical Spanish (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992) include only a very little dentistry.

Two useful volumes that I keep in my office bookshelf are dictionaries: Marcos Freiberg’s Bilingual Dictionary of Dental Terms, Spanish-English (San Francisco: ISM Press, 1990) and Dental Lexicon, 2nd ed., a listing of English dental terms with their equivalents in Spanish, German and French (London: Federation Dentaire Internationale [since renamed FDI World Dental Federation], 1985). Dr. Brent Curtis recommends looking for useful phrases in Spanish-language ADA pamphlets.

But the truth is, you will get only limited Spanish from words on a page. And self-study courses, even the ones with tapes and interactive CDs, are helpful only if you are really, really motivated. Just as you learned dental surgery primarily by taking a bur to enamel, you absorb Spanish mainly by getting practice speaking it. So take a class. Better yet, take an immersion class, such as the one my family and I enrolled in the summer of 2000.

We flew to Mexico City, then drove an hour south over the mountain to Cuernavaca, where we each enrolled in the Centro Bilingüe, a language school affiliated with the University of Morelos. Nestled in a lush garden setting, the Centro’s cafeteria sells electric orange mango slices and blood-red hibiscus tea, while its skilled teachers proffer equally colorful and invigorating language lessons. While my kids conjugated verbs, I punched up my conversational flow discussing literature and current affairs. When I mentioned I wanted to review some dental terminology, the Centro arranged for several private tutoring sessions with a local nurse whose father was a dentist. We lived with a local family, so when we went home we continued to practice the target language. After two weeks my kids weren’t fluent, but they were confident about expressing themselves using their new-found vocabulary.

You don’t have to speak Spanish perfectly—or even very well—to communicate effectively. There are three things to remember about learning Spanish: 1) Grammar and pronunciation don’t have to be flawless to be understood. 2) Spanish is a Latin-based language, so many words are similar in both Spanish and English, which makes remembering vocabulary easier. 3) A lot of information can be conveyed with a few simple expressions.

Let me start you out. Mucho gusto means "pleased to meet you." ¿Qué pasa? means "what’s going on?" or "what’s the problem?" ¿En que le ayudo? translates "how can I help you?" ¿Dónde le duele? is "where does it hurt?" Diente is tooth, hueco a cavity, relleno a filling and piquete the shot (the "qu" is pronounced "k"). Sacar means "to pull," if it has to come out. Abra means "open," and cierre, "close." There you are. You’re ready for your next patient. (And your next lesson.)

"A different language," Federico Fellini once said, "is a different vision of life." In treating our Arizona patients, knowing some Spanish can result in a more sensitive, profound vision of dental care. And it’s one practice builder you can enjoy after hours too.

From Inscriptions, Journal of the Arizona Dental Association, 15(4):5, October 2000.  Dr. Eric Curtis is author of Hand to Mouth: Essays on the Art of Dentistry, Quintessence, 2002.

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