The Medical Interpreter Blog

My name is Yuliya Speroff and I created this blog to help fellow medical interpreters and those who are thinking of becoming an interpreter access information and resources. I am hoping this blog will be equally useful for those who are only starting out and seasoned interpreters.

Here are some facts about me:

• I am a certified Russian interpreter with over 10 years of experience based in Seattle, Washington.  I hold CoreCHI-Performance™ (CoreCHI-P™) certification, as ell as Washington State DSHS certification of Medical Interpreter and Social Services Interpreter.
• I was named named Interpreter of the Year by CHIA (California Healthcare Interpreting Association) in 2021.
• I  enjoy doing conference presentations and providing interpreter training workshops. To learn more, visit the Interpreter Training section.
• I am passionate about professionalization of medical interpreting and I believe that getting certified is a great step towards this goal.
• I am a board mebmber of CHIA (California Healthcare Interpreting Association), member of the NCIHC (National Council of Interpreting in Healthcare) STC (Standards and Training Committee) and a member of NOTIS (Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society).
• I believe it is important to raise awareness of language access for individuals with limited English proficiency. In my current job as a medical interpreter supervisor at a major Seattle hospital, I do this daily by promoting Interpreter Services Department, managing translation projects and educating staff on partnering with medical interpreters. Outside of my work, I do this by writing in this blog, sharing information on social media, giving talks to students, and using all other available platforms. For example, I appeared in American Translator Association (ATA) podcast Inside Specialization. You can listen to the THE ATA PODCAST EPISODE 68: Inside Specialization-Medical Interpreting here. I appeared as a guest on Brand the Interpreter podcast – watch the original episode here and the follow-up Q&A session here. I then hosted Mireya Perez of Brand the Interpreter on the NCIHC podcast . I also had the honor of interviewing Katharine Allen, as well as Dr. Eric Hardt and Dr. Carey Jackson.
• I first started working as an interpreter while living in my hometown of Novosibirsk, Russia. In my capacity as an interpreter, I interpreted at a variety of events including conferences, hospital lectures, surgical workshops, TV interviews, business negotiations, and auditing visits using consecutive, simultaneous and chuchotage modes. During this time, I worked with Russian and multinational companies including AstroZeneca,  20th Century Fox, Meshalkin Research Institute of Pathology of Circulation and the International Olive Council. Notable assignments include acting as a personal interpreter for Jack Canfield (author of Chicken Soup for the Soul), performing simultaneous interpretation at a World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies Educational Conference, performing voice-overs for private marketing screenings of films for 20^th Century Fox, and acting as an interpreter for Kobi Levi, a celebrity shoe designer, during his TV appearances on news and talk shows.

• As soon as I moved to the US, I started working towards my certification as a medical interpreter. To that end, I  completed the two-semester, 104-hour Medical Interpretation Training Program offered by the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute in partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
• My interpreting experience in the US includes working as an interpreter with a number of agencies in Nashville, Tennessee and Seattle, Washington. Interpreting assignments have included a range of contexts and topics, including hospital appointments, surgeries, developmental therapy sessions, counseling sessions, and school conferences.
• My other qualifications include the following:
  • Diploma in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language, Russian Language Centre of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University
  • DELTA (Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
  • CELTA (Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
  • MA in Business Management from Moscow Institute of Economics and Finance
• This is my second professional blog: my first one, ELT resources, and tips can be found here. 

See some highlights of my career in the slideshow below:

You can contact me using the contact form below, th Contact tab at the top of the page and you can also find me on LinkedIn.