Medical Spanish Made Ridiculously Simple

Rating:
Summary: A Boon for Doctors and Nurses
Review: As a physician with little or no usable Spanish I can tell you this little book is simply indispensable for any health professional who treats Hispanic patients. The author has cleverly phrased all questions so that they require only a "yes" or "no" response from the patient; moreover, she provides very accurate phonetic pronunciation guides for every single phrase, thus allowing health professionals without a word of Spanish to effectively obtain all the information they need from patients who haven't a word of English. Although the author is not a physician she must have worked closely with someone who was (probably the publisher, who is well known for his extensive line of medical handbooks) because her interviewing outline is both thoughtlful and comprehensive. What more can I say?

Rating:
Summary: Review from a slow reader
Review: I borrowed this book from a friend on the job and now I'm going to purchase my own copy. The index is very helpful but the disease topics are not as easy to spot in the text as they could be. A little more highlighting or bold type would be helpful to me.

Also, for my use, I would like to see a format where the phonetic pronounciation is directly below the spanish word itself instead of the whole phonetic phrase to the right of the whole spanish phrase. I found myself starting with the spanish phrase, then looking to the right column to search for the word I wasn't familiar with, only to find that if I stayed with the phonetic phrase it was taking me longer to say a word I was already familiar with but didn't recognize in it's phonetic form. This meant I was doing a lot of darting back and forth across the page comparing and trying to find out where I was. It made for a painfully slow patient interview, but I felt I was obtaining accurate information

Perhaps, with a little practice I'll get better at it. I must apololgize to the editorial staff for wanting to cut up the book and re-arrange it to my liking but I think the book is a very valuable and useful tool and I would reccomend it to anyone. You truly do not have to know a "lick" of spanish to use this book and conduct a meaningful interview.