OUR MISSION

The National Association of Medical Spanish (NAMS) is a nonprofit organization of healthcare and language professionals collaborating to improve communication skills with Spanish-speaking patients, families, and communities through evidence-based medical language assessment and education.

OUR VISION

We envision a world in which language justice and health equity are achieved by:

• All individuals having the opportunity to achieve their best health by accessing and receiving healthcare in their preferred language(s) and 

• Multilingual health professionals are being empowered, incentivized, and supported to provide safe, high-quality, patient-centered, culturally sustaining, language-concordant care.

OUR VALUES

• We define Medical Spanish as the use of Spanish for direct communication with patients in the United States.

• We value language justice in healthcare, which means that all languages and linguistic practices are equally valued and permit persons to access and receive high-quality, usable health information and care to achieve their best health.

• We value health equity, meaning every individual has a fair and just opportunity to achieve their best health.

• We value every person and family’s language preferences. Preferred language is the language or languages in which a person can best communicate regarding a specific service or encounter. Language preferences are dynamic and nuanced and can vary among families and communities or change over time. Non-English language preference (NELP) is a recommended term that focuses on languages as dynamic assets, as opposed to the deficit-focused Limited English Proficiency framework.

• We value multilingualism in health professionals, defined as health professionals who have achieved proficiency in more than one language and are able to provide competent language-concordant care in those languages.

• We value culturally sustaining care and education, defined as actions that affirm and legitimize a person’s culture(s) with the intent that they can flourish and capitalize on cultural assets that can contribute to achieving their best health.

• We value language-concordant care, defined as direct health communication between a clinician and a patient or family, without a medical interpreter.

• We value collaboration with professional medical interpreters as core members of healthcare teams that facilitate language-appropriate care for patients when language discordance occurs.

• We value patient-centered care, defined as care that centers patients’ values and practices throughout health communication and services’ provision.