Medical Interpreter Research Paper

What is the importance of medical interpreters? Imagine that there are no interpreters in the United States, and someone, who doesn’t speak English, needs to go to a hospital; how would they be able to tell the doctor, who speaks English, their health problems without the help of a medical interpreter? There are three types of medical interpreters are in-house interpreters, freelance interpreters, and outside interpreters. The in-house medical interpreters are hired by the hospitals as full-time interpreters while the freelance interpreters choose their own hours and negotiate their own wages; additionally, the outside interpreters are from a nonprofit agency and only come when all the interpreters at the hospital are busy with other patients.

They play a big role in communities since they help community members become culturally aware and develop cultural tolerance. They help patients communicate their health problems with doctors and help the patients and the doctors understand each other’s cultures. There are a lot of factors that go into being a medical interpreter, other than being able to speak two languages fluently. In order to be an insider in this subculture, a person needs to be culturally aware, be trustworthy, and patient, as they need to make the staffs in the hospitals and patients understand each other's culture. Through first-hand experience, one can come to appreciate medical interpreters and understand how difficult the job of medical interpreter is; while observing and interviewing few medical interpreters, one can learn the obstacles a medical interpreter faces, the importance of this profession, and the rules and code of medical interpreter a medical interpreter must follow, as well as an inside look into this

There are a lot of obstacles that medical interpreters have to face in order to be a good medical interpreter. There are times when the medical interpreters run behind in their appointments because the doctors come in late for the appointment. “The interpreter schedules for an hour only, but the doctor runs behind and takes one and a half hour, which makes the interpreter late for another appointment, so they get complaints from the patients,” Ms. Renuka said as grabbed herself a bottle of water from the refrigerator. The hospital staffs and the patients do not understand each other’s culture sometimes, so the medical interpreter has to explain the culture. “Interpreters explain the culture, but some don’t understand the culture or respect it. For example, yelling and slapping the kids is culturally accepted in Nepali. Therefore, some families do that in the hospital, and some staffs blame the entire Nepali community for yelling and slapping their kids. In these situations, the interpreters try to be the educator to make both parties understand each other, but it’s very hard and unsuccessful sometimes,” said Ms. Renuka with a hint of sadness in her voice. The interpreters do their best and usually are successful at making the hospital’s staffs and the patients understand each other’s culture, but there are times where they are unsuccessful at making the staffs and the patients understand each other’s cultural differences.