The number of Latinos affected by dementia nationwide is expected to rise nine-fold over the next 30 years, according to Dr. Mora Pinzon, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And to meet this growing need, UW-Madison’s medical school is launching a new course to better train future doctors in culturally competent care. With around 660 students total currently enrolled, the school plays a significant role in training doctors in the state.
Starting this fall, the elective course will teach medical students how to recognize and respond to the unique health care needs of Latino patients with dementia. Developed in partnership with Milwaukee’s United Community Center, the course emphasizes real-world experience and aims to close gaps in diagnosis and care.
“Dementia affects everybody. Doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, you have probably been impacted, but we don’t say the name,” Pinzon said.
Pinzon said the Latino community remains “very young.” But as this community ages, more age-related health conditions will emerge.
“If we don’t prepare now, in the next 25 years — it takes 15 years to train one doctor — in 10 years, it’s really going to be too late,” Pinzon said.
Dr. Mora Pinzon serves as the implementation science leader for Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute.
Pinzon, who leads UW-Madison’s Mora Pinzon Lab, is part of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute, which leads research initiatives, education and public health programs, and aids statewide memory clinic development. The United Community Center is part of the institute’s diagnostic clinic network, helping researchers learn what is going on in communities.
The center has been involved with the new course’s creation since the start, as part of its long-standing partnership with UW-Madison that focuses on Latino community health and research projects. The center touts offering the state’s only bilingual memory clinic for Spanish speakers, according to Shary Perez, director of the center’s community health research department.
“For the past 17 years, the clinic has been working to share our lessons learned and also share cultural factors,” Perez said. “We’re part of this community, but we realize not everyone has the expertise or exposure to learn about the needs and challenges that our Latino community faces.”
Training beyond the classroom
About 7% of Dane County residents and 8% of Wisconsin’s population is Hispanic, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
However, in clinical training institutions, medical students often see people with insurance and who are highly educated, and students may lack the opportunity to work with the Latino community, Pinzon said.
Then when doctors work outside of training institutions, they see patients with a broader range of needs for assistance, according to Pinzon.
An example could be a patient with a transportation issue that prevents them getting to an appointment, or a patient reluctant to disclose health concerns. Pinzon said these situations are common when caring for Latinos.
“Those are the little extra things (students) might not get to experience on a regular basis,” Pinzon said. “But (the new course) will open their minds to what else is happening.”
While hopes for the course are expansive, Pinzon said there are two guiding goals: the elective’s reach and improving access. The course was created to extend beyond dementia-focused appointments, with lessons that could be applied to everything from cardiology to family medicine clinics, Pinzon said.
“All of those things that you have learned, how do you apply them in other settings or other diseases?” she said.
‘Just the first step’
The new course will also encourage medical students to think about improving future access to health care services and accurate care for older adults, according to Pinzon.
This elective aims to help decrease barriers to receiving a diagnosis and higher rates of under-diagnosis or misdiagnosis that Latinos experience.
“This is just the first step if I want to say, ‘Everybody deserves this type of care.’ We need to make sure we have the tools to train people to provide that care,” Pinzon said. “We are going to learn what works to teach them (students) that they will retain for the rest of their lives, and is not just a lecture, but a good process so that no matter where they go, they remember.”
Shary Perez is director of United Community Center’s community health research department. The center has collaborated on the new course to create the curriculum.
One of the largest hurdles for a memory care clinic is when somebody retires, according to Pinzon. The course seeks to train the next generation of doctors in retaining institutional knowledge and memory.
Students enrolled in the elective will have the chance to shadow at United Community Center’s memory clinic in Milwaukee.
“Future physicians will have the opportunity to be at the clinic and learn while they’re watching how our staff is serving our community,” Perez said. “It would allow them to capture real life experiences and not only what we can share with them through lectures.”
After the course pilots this fall, Pinzon’s teams plan to reassess how goals were met and how to continue expanding. Pinzon has already received interest in the elective from nursing and physical therapy students, she said.
“This is what we hope that people will see — how we can do things better everywhere,” Pinzon said.