Improving cross-cultural skills of medical students through medical school-community partnerships.

Postulating that a program integrating language skills with other aspects of cultural knowledge could assist in developing medical students' ability to work in cross-cultural situations and that partnership with targeted communities was key to developing an effective program, a medical school and two organizations with strong community ties joined forces to develop a Spanish Language and Hispanic Cultural Competence Project. Medical student participants in the program improved their language skills and knowledge of cultural issues, and a partnership with community organizations provided context and resources to supplement more traditional modes of medical education.