Below is a collection of resources that can be used to practice consecutive and simultaneous interpreting skills, and sight translation skills. I am hoping these resources will be useful for healthcare interpreters with all levels of experience – those just starting out and preparing to take their exams or their first assignments, or those with years of experience wanting to brush up on a specific topic. This list is constantly updated as I find new resources and I welcome your suggestions – leave a comment below or get in touch using the Contact tab.

Medical Dialogues and Scenarios

Video and audio-based medical dialogues and role-plays

• Kelly Grzech Henriquez’s channel is a treasure trove of videos with medical scenarios she personally created for medical interpreters to use to practice consecutive interpreting.
• Interpreting in Healthcare: Resources for Practitioners, Healthcare Interpreters and Service Users from The University of Glasgow. These 5 films have been developed directly from the experiences of health care practitioners, interpreters and migrant service users.
• Nursing Simulation Scenarios: These are a series of nursing simulation scenarios created to educate nursing students but are also great resource for interpreters.
• Communication Skills: A Patient-Centered Approach. The first 10 minutes of the video is a simulation of a medical dialogue with a patient complaining of a headache.
• English-Spanish interpreting practice videos
• Chest pain medical dialogue: a simulation of a doctor taking medical history
• Clinical History taking simulation 
• UVa Clinical Skills videos is a collection of videos aimed at medical students, showing clinical procedures and exams. Skip the text description at the beginning and go straight to the video depicting exams/procedures.

• My blog post on note-taking for consecutive interpreting contains several audio recordings that can be used to practice consecutive interpreting (and this is one with longer recordings). 
• Case study clinical example: The first session with a client with symptoms of social anxiety (CBT model) is a 12-minute video between a therapist and a patient.
• A series of educational YouTube videos of doctor visits from the University College of London (since the videos are produced in the UK, some vocabulary will be different from that of the US – e.g. A&E (accident and emergency) vs the ER/ED (emergency room/emergency department)
• Role-plays of clinical interviews for mental health and counseling from the YouTube channel of Dr. Todd Grande. He also has a vast amount of videos on various mental health issues
• How to Talk to Your Patients About Quitting Smoking: a dialogue between a doctor and a patient about smoking cessation
• A series of role-plays of counseling sessions with medical social workers: here, here, here and here.
• These videos on the Patient Healthcare Education YouTube channel are not dialogues but still great for practicing interpreting medical information delivered by doctors.
• A nurse and a patient roleplay about taking insulin.

Text-based medical dialogues

• Medical Language Dialogues transcribed from https://gauchatranslations.com (English-English)
• An International Workbook of Activities and Role Plays for Medical, Educational and Social Services Interpreters
• Candidate Handbook and Sample Test Medical Interpreter Competency Examination (MICE) from the National Center for Interpretation University of Arizona (both English-English and Spanish)
• Study Booklets for Medical Interpreters from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services for Chinese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. Includes transcribed medical dialogues and documents for sight interpretation and Audio Practice Samples for the same languages as the above
• Dialogues with Patients in Spanish

Sight Translation & Glossary Building

Websites with translated healthcare information are a treasure trove of sight translation practice. The reason why I prefer such websites over millions of other resources for sight translations (e.g. medical brochures you can pick up in most hospitals for free) is that, because you have documents in both English and another language (say, Russian or Arabic), you pretty much have a ready-made answer key!

How to do sight translation practice:

Bilingual/translated materials:

1. Open a document in one language.
2. Record yourself sight translating the document, then listen to your translation and compare with the translated document. While your version does not have to be identical to the one on the website, it will still give you an idea of how well you did.
3. Now do it in the other direction – from your language into English.
4. Make sure to record new vocabulary into your vocabulary log!

English only materials:

1. Open a document in one language.
2. Record yourself sight translating the document, then listen to your translation while looking at the original document. Were there any omissions, additions or errors? Did the translation flow smoothly?
3. Make sure to record new vocabulary into your vocabulary log!

You can also use these documents to build glossaries. Start by reading in English and highlighting words/phrases you are struggling to translate. Then check the translated version and try to find an equivalent there.

• Medical Sight Translation Practice: Kelly (Grzech) Henriquez has put together an amazing collection of materials to practice sight translation – as well as some tips and tricks.
• MedicinePlus contains information for the public in about 50 languages, from the US National Library of Medicine. Most documents come as bilingual pdfs which is absolutely perfect for sight translation!
• Multi-Language Health History Forms. Download one in English and one in your language.
• University of Washington Medical Center offers translations of patient education materials – search by language. 
• Health Information Translated. The resource is a database of healthcare documents translated into a number of languages (I counted 18!) including Spanish, Arabic, and Russian. The documents include, among other things, care instructions, disease and condition descriptions, diagnostic test and procedure descriptions, information on stress and coping, diet and nutrition.
• Medi-Cal Eligibility Division (MCED) Translated Forms in 12 languages. Sight translation practice procedure as the above.
• Translated information on health and well-being (Australia).
• Vaccination Handouts in several languages.
• Advice on practicing your sight translation skills from the California Courts website
• Introduction to the Sight Translation Chapter (from The Interpreter’s Edge, Generic Edition) which includes a sight translation exercise (autopsy report)

Other Resources

• For  resources specific to interpreting in oncology (cancer care). You can find it here. 
• For resources related to idioms for medical interpreters click here and here.
• To learn about self-care for medical interpreters, click here.
• For ideas on glossary building, click here.
• For a list of podcasts related to medicine in English, see here.
• For recommendations for TV shows medical interpreters, click here.
• For recommendations of books for medical interpreters, click here.
• For a list of blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels for interpreters, click here.
• For recommendations for Russian-language podcasts and medical books click here and here.

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  More about the author: About Yuliya Speroff

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