By Ian Wesselhoff 

A s a first responder, Bradley Wilson (’25) works in high-pressure emergency situations on a daily basis. The former pitcher for the Bobcat baseball team responds to 911 calls, takes care of patients in ambulances, and does a little bit of everything in the emergency room. 

Wilson, a psychology and Spanish double major, comes from a medical family – in fact, nearly every woman in his family is a nurse – and he says seeing how they got to treat people and serve their community inspired him to follow in their footsteps. 

He spends his days as an advanced EMT in Laurens County and as a patient care technician in the emergency department at Fairview Park Hospital in Dublin, Georgia, and he is currently preparing for physician assistant medical school to become a PA. What makes Wilson stand out even more, though, is how he implements his Spanish language skills in the medical setting. 

Wilson is one of just three Spanish speakers in the emergency department at Fairview Park Hospital, which serves about 250 patients a day. That fluency is invaluable for providing more comprehensive care for everyone in the community. 

“People in general are scared to go to the doctor’s office anyway, and then I feel like that only amplifies exponentially when you have no clue what the doctors are saying,” Wilson said. “I don’t want Spanish-speaking patients to be nervous to come and get medically served just because there’s a language barrier. That’s one of my big goals.” 

Wilson discovered his interest in Spanish when he went on a trip to the Dominican Republic in high school, which was the first time he ever left the country. 

“Especially in southeast Georgia, where I’m from, and just the South in general, I feel like people don’t realize what’s outside the United States. I feel like everybody should go outside of those walls and just see something different, because it can change you,” Wilson said. “And for me, it made me really want to learn Spanish.” 

The summer between his junior and senior year at Georgia College, Wilson spent six weeks living in Spain, teaching English to Italian students in Madrid in an internship program through GCSU. That immersion, he says, forced him to “figure it out,” and he improved rapidly over that short span. 

During the internship, Wilson heard about a Spanish class at Georgia College that focuses on medical interpretation and translation between the two languages in that context. He reached out to Dr. Daniel Holcombe, associate professor of Spanish, to get into the class, and the following semester inspired Wilson to develop further cultural competencies. 

“Being able to speak Spanish is one thing, but I think also understanding more of the cultural background and being aware of that is big, too,” Wilson said. “That’s another thing that Georgia College did a really good job at – not only teaching the language but also teaching you to be culturally aware of the differences in between the same language.” 

Wilson says he was one of very few students in his upper-level classes without any Spanish-speaking family members, so he would practice by listening to music and speaking with his fellow students outside of class. Now, he listens to Spanish music daily and is a regular listener of several Spanish baseball podcasts. 

“They were just so supportive in my learning ability, because, truthfully, I was not at the same level of Spanish as my other classmates,” Wilson said. “But they pushed me, and Dr. Holcombe pushed me and made me a lot better … That class was definitely one of my favorite classes I ever took at Georgia College, and one of the most influential classes I ever took.”

Header Image: Bradley Wilson ('25) is an EMT and ER patient care technician in his hometown of Dublin, Georgia.