Teaching medical students to work with interpreters
Written by ForeignExchange Translations on Monday, July 26, 2010
The other day we reported on a good article on translating humor that was published in The Journal of Specialised Translations. The same issue contains a piece on Teaching Medical Students to work with Interpreters, which is also a good read.
The article reports on a study about first year medical students' knowledge of interpreting issues, before and after attending a workshop on how to effectively work with interpreters. While the study was small in size, it nonetheless demonstrated the value of exposing students to theoretical and practical aspects of interpreting
Unfortunately, realizing the value of professional interpreters is only one of the challenges facing medical students and healthcare providers in general. The following comment was made by one of the survey respondents:
Interpreters have an important role to play in the multicultural nation that is Australia. It is a shame that we have bureaucrats managing the system who can only treat patients and staff as commodities and view interpreters as a waste of money. Keep up the good work Interpreters!Now who will educate administrators to the value of professional interpreters?
Take a look at some of our other articles on language, culture and healthcare:
- Patients at risk due to lack of translations
- Certification for medical interpreters becomes reality
- Translating healthcare
ForeignExchange Translations provides specialized medical translation and software localization services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Contact us to learn more.
