List of Groups

Mission
The purpose of this organization is to:

1. To empower learners with a self-identified affinity for the Spanish language (including native speakers, near-native speakers, heritage speaker and otherwise conversationally-fluent speakers) to actively develop advanced communication and clinical/diagnostic linguistic abilities in the Spanish language—in the interest of providing accurate, accessible and equitable healthcare to patients in both English and in Spanish. 
2. To provide a culturally aware, high-fluency-level clinical Spanish education grounded in active-learning methods and clinical Spanish simulation, accounting for and teaching future clinicians about the diversity of linguacultural uniquities present in the array of Spanish dialects spoken throughout the Hispanic/Latine world.
3. To cultivate future leaders in healthcare to develop a rich and comprehensive understanding of disparities, disease, customs and community—via peer and faculty mentorship pathways, research/publication opportunities, as well as access to the expanding body of didactic/instructive clinical Spanish resources.
4. To provide opportunities beyond the simulation/learning environment for advanced Spanish speakers to participate in community involvement/outreach, collective action, and other extra-organizational activities related to community-building with the Spanish-speaking community in Pasadena, the greater Los Angeles area, and the state of California as a whole. 
5. To provide a nurturing space for advanced Spanish speakers to exercise and develop their clinical Spanish in simulation, training, classroom, and other learning environments (such that speakers with a strong background in the Spanish language may identify, discuss, develop, and apply the unique features of advanced clinical Spanish during their future practice). 
6. To prepare future Spanish-language healthcare providers to use advanced clinical Spanish beyond direct translation, such that it conveys the tonal richness and idiosyncrasies relevant to equitable and accessible care (including but not limited to expressions of deference, empathy and compassion, rapport-building, metaphorical, illustrative, and instructive language, as well as the expression of complex concepts not directly translatable from English to Spanish). 
7. To prepare future bilingual providers to enter into clinical spaces (such as residency programs, community health centers, and healthcare advocacy/action spaces) equipped to teach colleagues, other healthcare providers, and more broadly other members of the healthcare apparatus to themselves utilize advanced clinical Spanish—based off of the model and modalities of instruction, dialectic glossaries, clinical cases, oral case presentations, and other instructional materials provided by KPAX to learners throughout and beyond their years at KPSOM. 
8. To enhance and expand recruitment, retention, and outreach to future medical students/trainees with a self-identified affinity for the Spanish language at KPSOM. 
9. To perform the above purposes longitudinally, as a living and evolving instructional/training process spanning across all four years of medical education at KPSOM—with time expanding to comprise a national web of alumni, colleagues, community networks, and advisors/mentors involved in the development of the next generation of Spanish-speaking physicians.