Why English Shouldn't Be the Barrier Between You and Your Healthcare Career
Why English Shouldn't Be the Barrier Between You and Your Healthcare Career
By Regina Po, RN | CEO & Co-Founder, Avygo Inc. | April 9, 2026
I've sat across the table from some of the most capable healthcare workers I've ever met. They knew their patients. They knew their protocols. They showed up every single day with precision and care that most people take years to develop.
They were Latino adults. And many of them were invisible to the US healthcare system — not because of their skills, but because of their language.
I'm a nurse. I've worked in clinical settings, telehealth, and healthcare education for over 15 years. And I can tell you with absolute certainty: English fluency is not a measure of competence. It never was.
How We Got Here
The US healthcare system was built by English speakers, for English speakers. Every certification pathway, every training platform, every practice exam — designed with one language in mind.
This wasn't a conscious decision to exclude Latino workers. It was an unconscious one. And unconscious exclusion is often harder to fix than deliberate discrimination, because nobody sees it as a problem until someone points it out.
I'm pointing it out.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Latino adults are projected to account for 78% of all new US workers between now and 2030. The healthcare industry is simultaneously facing its worst workforce shortage in modern history — projected shortfalls of over 78,000 nurses and tens of thousands of medical assistants, billing specialists, and patient care technicians.
These two facts exist side by side. The community that America needs most in healthcare is the same community being turned away at the door of every training program because the door is labeled "English Only."
This is not just a social justice issue. It's a workforce crisis with a solution hiding in plain sight.
What the Barrier Actually Looks Like
It's not dramatic. It doesn't announce itself.
It looks like a medical terminology course that assumes you already know what "hypertension" means in English — when you've known it as "hipertensión" your whole life.
It looks like a practice exam where the question is clear in your mind but the English phrasing trips you up, and you fail a test you actually knew the answer to.
It looks like a job application that asks for "fluent English" for a role where 80% of your patients speak Spanish.
It's a thousand small moments that add up to one message: you don't belong here.
That message is wrong.
What Belonging Actually Requires
Healthcare doesn't require a perfect accent. It requires precision, empathy, and knowledge.
You can learn medical terminology in Spanish and build English fluency in parallel — because they are separate skills that develop on separate timelines.
You can practice professional English conversations before you ever walk into a clinical setting — through AI tools that simulate real scenarios and give you feedback in real time.
Meet AVA Speaking Buddy — our bilingual AI conversation coach. Practice real medical English scenarios, get feedback in Spanish, no judgment, 24/7. AVA is ready when you are.
You can prepare for licensed vocational programs in your own language, at your own pace, without sacrificing accuracy or depth.
This is exactly what Avygo was built to do. Our bilingual AI platform teaches the same rigorous content as any English-only program — in Spanish first, with English woven in naturally.
The knowledge was always yours. We just built the bridge.
A Message to Every Latino Adult Waiting
If you've been told — directly or indirectly — that your English isn't good enough to work in healthcare, I want you to hear this:
Your language is not your limitation. The system's design is.
And that design is changing.
Take our free Career Quiz at avygo.net — it takes three minutes and tells you exactly which healthcare career fits your background and goals.
Your career doesn't start when your English is perfect. It starts today.
Regina Po, RN is a nurse with 15+ years of clinical and telehealth experience and the CEO and co-founder of Avygo — a bilingual AI-powered healthcare education platform for Spanish-speaking adults in the US.
