Question about Spanish Interpreting

[Ezryk]

I currently volunteer at a clinic that provides free healthcare to a large Hispanic population. I am very proficient in Spanish, yet am not quite fluent. Since I started there I have been scheduling appointments, conducting eligibility screens, and other various tasks with Hispanic patients in Spanish. I however also have knowledge of medical Spanish.

Recently, the interpreter coordinator there asked me if I would like to start interpreting in the exam rooms for the non-Spanish speaking physicians.

I understand that it would be ideal for me to receive a national interpreting license or certification, but unfortunately I just don’t have the available time to enroll in such an endeavor.

My intentions are good, and I would NOT pursue this in any way if I thought my Spanish proficiency was at the level where there was any potential risk for the patients.

My question is whether medical schools would look at an internal (from the interpreter coordinator) certification as sufficient validation of my Spanish speaking skills. Should I find the time to become nationally certified? The clinic I work at is affiliated with a very large hospital system in the region I live in.

Thank you for your help!

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[lalalallala]

At many hospitals you are not allowed to speak Spanish to patients unless you have been certified - this is for good reason - you don't know what you don't know and pertinent details and medical information may be lost in your translation without knowing it - that is why the certification standards for interpreting are so high.

That being said hospitals often have shortages of certified translators and a decent translation is better than none at all. I don't think you would need to explicitly state in your application that you aren't nationally certified. You could just say that you were a translator and underwent the hospital's internal approval process or something like that.

I am assuming through this story that the hospital does not require translators to be certified? If this is how they do things then I think you should do it and try to improve your medical Spanish so you could eventually take the test. It will help you now and later with future patients. If, on the other hand, this hospital does require national certification and this coordinator is just skirting the rules, then I would not do it.

 

[Ezryk]

Thanks for the insight.

I specifically asked the coordinator whether national certification was required and for this clinic it is not. I will likely go through with the internal certification but am still nervous this may look disingenuine to medical schools when I apply.

I guess I just want to be thorough to make sure this won’t become a red flag on my app.

 

[lalalallala]

Thanks for the insight.

I specifically asked the coordinator whether national certification was required and for this clinic it is not. I will likely go through with the internal certification but am still nervous this may look disingenuine to medical schools when I apply.

I guess I just want to be thorough to make sure this won’t become a red flag on my app.

I think as long as you say you did the internal certification and met the requirements the clinic wanted for interpreting then you are fine - don't think the ADCOMs will see this as a red flag

 

[mackie10]

Personally I would shoot for the certification not just for proving to medical school that you have sufficient validation but just as a way to solidify your confidence and capability in the job. My mother is a Spanish medical interpreter and even though she is a native Spanish speaker, she has told me that linking medical terminology from Spanish to English and vice versa is a feat of its own, especially when it comes to communicating between patients and medical professionals in real time in stressful situations. Additionally, you may work with Spanish speaking patients who have Spanish that is difficult to understand due to the country they are from or the village slang they use. You definitely need to be fully confident you can do it since you will be held responsible if there is a communication mishap. I don't mean to scare you but just wanted to add some perspective due to my mother's first hand experience!

 

[Incursio]

I would go for certification if you have the time (either NBCMI or CHI) basically because the quality of interpreting you can provide when you get certified vs not and the opportunities provided to you are vastly different. For most hospitals, if you do not have certification you have to undergo an internal screening by the Interpreter Services department, which will involve consecutive and simultaneous interpretation, vocab testing, etc. This is because unlike a clinic setting, you are thrown into many different scenarios in different specialties and areas in the hospital so you never know what you have to know/what you will be dealing with. Palliative Care end of life meetings with families, trauma in the ED, consents from procedures, meetings to discuss new diagnosis, diabetes education, psych evals, social worker consults, etc. you get the idea, the experiences are varied, and fast-paced at times, which is why you need that simultaneous interpreting skill.

In a clinic, things tend to be way slower and you will be doing mostly consecutive interpreting and you might be dealing with just a couple of specialties at most and do mostly things like intakes, getting the story from patients, informing them of treatment plans,etc. As a result, clinics do not have as high of a standard as hospitals do (even if they are associated with a hospital), when it comes to who they let interpret.

At the end of the day, they are both valuable experiences, but I feel the need to point out that if you expect/want to do any of the former, then go and get certified. No matter how fluent someone is and no matter if they feel they know enough Spanish medical terminology, when you are thrown into stressing situations and you have to deal with angry patients, staff that gets annoyed at your interpreting thinking they "know" what the patient said with their broken Spanish, you get flustered, which will most likely affect your interpreting and you will be doing a huge disservice to your patients.

I took a Spanish medical interpreting class, and went on to volunteer at a clinic so I did know my terminology back then. I later became a certified interpreter and worked full-time at a hospital so I can tell you that the quality of interpreting you can provide between the 2 settings is totally different, and if Spanish is a language you hope to use frequently when you become a doctor, it could be worth pursuing for the experience.

 

[907914]

I would say shoot for the certification if you can, not just to actually show you are qualified to do what you are doing, but so you can add letters after your name in your work email. It’s a confidence boost to say you are “nationally certified” in something.

Seriously though, if the hospital/clinic doesn’t require it then the only reason you should not do it is if you are not confident in your own Spanish abilities.