Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Medical Interpreters Improve Doctor-patient Communication

Photos and story by James Hill

by James HillIt was only three years ago when Walter Osorio walked into a county health clinic, sick and somewhat confused. He had just come to Portland from El Salvador to attend college when he became very ill, but with his poor English skills he had no way of communicating with the nurses or doctors."They asked me for my information and about what was wrong with me and I couldn’t speak to them,"Osorio remembered. "And, they didn’t have an interpreter. They didn’t know what to do and they told me to go home and they’d call me in a couple of days."The clinic summoned Osorio two days later and an elderly Hispanic woman greeted him. Osorio tried to convey to her what was wrong, but she was at a loss as to interpret to him what the doctors were saying. In the end, the frustration of that situation has haunted him."I didn’t even know (what) the medicine was for when they gave it to me,"Osorio said. "The interpreter came up to me afterwards. She apologized and said she was the doctor’s housekeeper. The last two years she had been interpreting for him at the clinic when they’ve needed her."Oregon’s Latino population is growing fast and the need for qualified medical interpreters to help with critical communication between doctor and patient is increasing. It was from his own frustration that Osorio, who now works for the Kids Like Languages program through the Portland Public Schools, decided to become a medical interpreter by enrolling at Portland Community College. PCC’s Institute for Continuing Education of Health Care Professionals developed the Spanish Medical Interpreting program two years ago to train more than 40 professionals a year to help local health care providers communicate with Spanish-speaking patients."With more and more people coming here who are not English speaking natives, the more and more important it is for people to communicate in the health care field,"said Judy Harris-Skye, director of PCC’s Institute for Continuing Education of Health Care Professionals. "It is very important class and PCC is in a good position to provide this type of education."The program, established in 1999 as a partnership between PCC and OHSU, trains interpreters to help in a wide variety of health care environments, from hospitals and clinics to doctor’s offices. It trains healthcare professionals who want to use their bilingual skills in English and Spanish to assist at work clinics and hospitals. The interpreters help doctors and nurses communicate with non-native speaking patients to better serve them during emergencies and regular medical care.Rafael Arellano-Barrera has worked at PCC for the last 10 years as a part-time instructor in Spanish and now recently in medical interpreting. "Some people that come from Mexico’s rural areas haven’t had to face a medical system before,"he said. "The interpreter can tell them how it works."At the Central Portland Workforce Training Center, students take classes in terminology, anatomy and physiology. Another course contains medical interpreting concepts, which lets them know what their role and responsibilities are. The final evaluation is at OHSU where the students go through 30 hours of interpreting duties with actual patients.The program is a six-month training course where students receive a certificate of recognition from PCC once they complete their requirements. Because of its success, there are plans to expand the program to include most relevant languages (i.e. Chinese and Russian) to better serve the community."We started with Spanish because that was where the biggest need was and we want to expand beyond Spanish in the future,"said adjunct faculty member Maria Michalczyk, who teaches in the program. "I hope within the next few years we can expand to all languages."Michalczyk said the background of students is wide ranging, from medical assistants to people who are simply bilingual and are interested in health care. However, the health care profession has just recently been able to establish programs like PCC’s to help train professionals."The interpreting service has really begun to show only in the last five years,"Michalczyk said. "The reason it exists is because there are community members who don’t speak English, but need to have equal access to quality health care."This is something Osorio knows all about."Just because you are bilingual doesn’t mean you can be a medical interpreter,"Osorio said. "I could be talking to somebody from Argentina where there is a difference in culture and language and you need skills to understand that. I want to be a good interpreter and be useful to the people that need the service."