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Behind the Scenes of Medical Interpreting: Highlights from My Provider Pulse Podcast Interviews
Go behind the scenes of medical interpreting with Yuliya Speroff, author of TheMedicalInterpreterBlog.com, over two episodes of the Provider Pulse podcast. Yuliya shares insights on the emotional and ethical challenges interpreters face, cultural brokering in complex clinical encounters, and practical strategies providers and interpreters can use to improve patient care…
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Interpreting in Mental Health: Resources and Terminology
The collection of resources will help medical interpreters learn more about mental health. t is important for medical interpreters to learn about mental health because they will likely find themselves interpreting in various encounters where mental health will be discussed – from primary care appointments, to trauma counselling, groups therapy…
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What does compassion mean for medical interpreters?
When you ask healthcare providers to give some examples of when they showed compassion to a patient, you may hear a story of a nurse who spent extra time, the time they did not have, in a patient’s room when the patient was frail, scared and lonely. A doctor might…
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Book recommendations for medical interpreters
As I wrote in this post, where I recommend that medical interpreters watch TV shows in order to improve their medical vocabulary and get some interpreting practice, stimulating input is a key factor in learning. And chances are, if you are a medical interpreter (or are thinking about becoming one),…
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Self-care for Medical Interpreters
Being in a ‘helping’ professions has its price. We help others and we love it – but we should also remember to help ourselves by recognizing the warning signs that we are stressed, exhausted or are suffering from vicarious trauma, and by practicing self-care to both prevent and mitigate long-term…
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Emergency Room Interpreting: Essential Knowledge and Preparedness
In the world of medical interpretation, the emergency room (ER) or emergency department (ED) presents unique challenges for interpreters. Medical interpreters play a crucial role in ensuring swift and accurate communication in these intense settings.
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Interpreting for Spiritual Care – Short Guide for Healthcare Interpreters
This article introduces medical interpreters to the amazing work of healthcare spiritual care providers, argues that medical interpreters have a responsibility to prepare for interpreting for spiritual encounters as they would for any other healthcare encounter, and provides some resources to do that. Spiritual care, which may also be called…
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Virology Terminology Resources for Medical Interpreters: from COVID-19 and HIV to Vaccines and Immunity
In light of the global pandemic, viruses have been in the news and on our mind – and while it certainly has brought viruses into the spotlight, they actually existed 3.5 billion years before humans evolved on Earth! Viruses are also most numerous microbes on earth – there are more viruses than…
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Audio recordings for consecutive note-taking practice
This is the second post devoted to note-taking for medical interpreters. The first post provided some links to resources on basic-note taking skills and provided materials for structured note-taking practice, including the key terminology worksheet and transcripts. This post contains practice materials for next step in note-taking practice. It contains…
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Breathe in, breathe out: respiratory system resources for medical interpreters
In this post, I put together resources related to anatomy of the respiratory (pulmonary) system, as well as resources related diagnosis and treatment of respiratory conditions and diseases. Whether you are a medical interpreting student preparing for medical interpreter certification exams or a working medical interpreter looking for a quick…
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Idioms for Medical Interpreters: Practice Activities
This blog post is a collection of practice activities meant both to accompany my webinar on Interpreting Idioms and Cultural References and also provide opportunities for self-study. If you haven’t attended my webinar, read this blog post which will provide you with an overview of strategies for interpreting idioms: Idioms…
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Note-taking for Medical Interpreters: Resources and Practice Materials
Note-taking as part of consecutive interpretation is an essential skill for any interpreter – whether you’re interpreting at a medical appointment, a deposition, or a conference, and whether you’re doing this in person, over the phone or remotely. This blog post is a collection of resources for developing note-taking skills. In…
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Interpreting Humor and Jokes: Who has the Last Laugh?
What happens when either the patient or the provider makes a joke during an interpreting assignment? Or maybe worse, what do you do if someone flirts with you during an assignment? These unpredictable situations may seem harmless and playful to the person making the joke but could lead to awkward…
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Thank You For the Words: Building Your Interpreter Glossary
I’m not sure where this drawing is from but from time to time it makes rounds in various interpreter groups on social media. Aside from being funny, the image captures the true nature of the interpreter profession: it’s a highly-skilled job. Being a good interpreter involves well-developed listening and speaking…
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For Interpreters by Interpreters: Useful Resources and Interesting Content
Sometimes, being an interpreter can be a lonely profession. When I worked as a freelance medical interpreter, spending my days driving between hospitals and clinics in the Greater Seattle area, my friend and a fellow interpreter Angelika and I worked for many of the same agencies and often took appointments…
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Resources for Russian Medical Interpreters Part 2: Podcasts
Why podcasts? This post continues a series of posts suggesting resources specifically for Russian language interpreters. The first post listed some books in Russian that I think will be helpful for healthcare interpreters. In this article, we`ll turn our attention to Russian-language podcasts. As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, when…
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Resources for Russian Medical Interpreters Part 1: Books
A post featuring a list of resources for healthcare interpreters of the Russian labguage
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Resources for Interpreting in Cancer Care
As interpreters, we should always strive to develop our knowledge and our glossaries. Whether you’re a seasoned interpreter who wants to brush up on oncology terminology before an appointment or a new interpreter who wants to be ready for interpreting in cancer care, I hope this list of resources will…
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Idioms for Medical Interpreters
Why Are Idioms Important For Medical Interpreters? Why is there an article on idioms in a blog for medical interpreters? Wouldn’t your time be better spent studying up on medical terminology or learning about medical procedures? My answer to these questions is this: yes and no. Undoubtedly, fluency in medical…
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Suggested podcasts for medical interpreters
One of the cannons of National Code of Ethics for Interpreters in Healthcare states that ‘The interpreter strives to continually further his/her knowledge and skills.’ While this is a worthy pursuit, we all lead busy lives and we need to find a way to further our knowledge and skills that…
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Netflix and Learn: Unconventional Resources for Medical Interpreters
This blog post will describe a possibly unconventional resource for medical interpreters which can be used to add to their medical glossaries and contribute to their overall knowledge of medicine and healthcare: medical TV shows.