Bilingual Health Care Studies, Bachelor of Arts

The Department of Public Health at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) offers a bilingual healthcare studies degree that prepares you to be a culturally competent bilingual patient navigator in various healthcare settings.  A patient navigator is a health services career path in the U.S. or in other nations.  A bilingual health care studies professional addresses the diverse cultural issues, religious practices, and specific conventions that can create a barrier to patient accessibility and availability of health care.  You will learn to be a culturally and linguistically capable health interpreter and translator that knows appropriate behaviors, posturing skills, and verbal and non-verbal communication techniques.  Our degree offers language options for Spanish, Arabic, French, or German.

Coursework

The health education component of the degree includes the content areas of community health; epidemiology; principles of US health systems; public health; medical terminology; nutrition and dietetics; grief, loss, and death counseling; and the study of communicable and non-communicable diseases. The language options available through the degree include Spanish, Arabic, French, and German. These linguistic focus areas represent the changing cultural demographics of the major Texas health markets. Students have the option to select electives in the academic support areas of sociology, family and consumer sciences, counseling education, and philosophy.

Internships

Bilingual health care studies majors have the option to participate in a 200-hour professional internship in health services organizations.

Careers in Bilingual Health Care Studies

Work as a patient navigator/advocate in a variety of settings:

• Private home
• Hospitals
• Organizations such as the American Cancer Society or Patient Advocate Foundation
• Government agencies

Program Breakdown