Globalization, increased cross-border travel, and the growing number of people impacted by immigration in North America, makes bilingual medical providers increasingly essential both in the United States and throughout Latin America. The education of physicians and medical providers must provide access to the development of language skills and cultural familiarity to enhance medical care.

This project reflects a multinational education partnership, which connects medical students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) with their learning peers at medical schools in Mexico and Colombia; Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo (UAEH) in Mexico, and Universidad El Bosque (UEB) in, Bogotá, Colombia.

This experiential activity, facilitated through the language centers at VCU, UAEH, and UEB, allowed medical students in each country to practice and enhance their non-dominant L2 skills through a series of Teletandem interactions that included Spanish-English doctor-patient role-play activities and discussions about healthcare systems and medical practice in the respective countries.

The sessions were carried out as one-on-one interactions and as group-to-group discussions. The language center staff collaborated with the medical teaching assistant and professors of the enrichment block at VCU and UAEH. They served as instructional designers, activity facilitators, and collectors of action research data later evaluated by the project leaders to make "translingual" activities more relevant and enriching for medical students.