Spanish language opportunities in genetic counseling training programs in the United States.

Abstract

This cross-sectional survey study explores ongoing initiatives to foster diversity and inclusivity within the field of genetic counseling, specifically focusing on opportunities within graduate programs for students to enhance language and counseling skills in Spanish, thereby fostering language concordance in genetic counseling settings. With a response rate of 44.8% (26/58) across genetic counseling graduate programs, our study provides an overview of educational offerings in Spanish, encompassing patient-facing, non-patient-facing, and combined opportunities. Of the programs that completed the survey, 73.1% (19/26) offer Spanish language opportunities. Several perceived benefits were identified by those that offer opportunities, including fostering cultural humility and diversity within the field, increasing awareness and accessibility of genetic counseling services, and facilitating involvement in research within minority groups. The information gathered from this study can be a resource for graduate programs seeking insights into effective strategies to incorporate Spanish language opportunities. Additionally, these results may also serve as a source of inspiration for students who want to apply their Spanish language skills in their training and future careers. Lastly, we propose ideas to enhance and expand the training of bilingual genetic counseling students in Spanish.