[Milleny Arantess]

Cristina,
I agree with your points on how crucial it is to have mental retention as a medical interpreter. With good mental retention, you remember key information like words, tone, and language that is being used by the patient or provider.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Joseph,
I agree with your point of lack of focus, attention to detail, and sleep. It is really important to be focused and rested when working because then you will understand everything being said and will interpret it to the best of your ability.
Having a good sleep schedule is also just important overall, and I desperately need to fix mine LOL.

[Milleny Arantess]

There are many things that can inhibit good mental retention, but to know what can inhibit it you have to know and understand what good mental retention is. Mental retention is the ability to remember, keep, and recall information over long periods of time.
Things that can inhibit this ability includes not learning the way your supposed to. There are three different types of learnes visual, auditory, and haptic each type of learner needs to study in a different way so they can learn and remember what they need to and if your doing something that woks for an auditory learner but your a visual learner you won’t remember or learn what you needed too. Other things that can inhibit mental retention is your diet, lack of exercise and stress/mood. If your diet is bad for your body it is bad for your brain. If you don’t exercise that is bad for your brain. If you have a lot of stress and can’t manage it, that is bad for your brain and if you are always in a bad mood or don’t laugh that is bad for your brain.
The company you have around you can also have an affect on your brain. If you have people around you who aren’t supportive and always try to bring you down, your brain will suffer and you won’t have good mental retention.
Good mental retention is the key to becoming a successful medical interpreter because you have to remember what is being said so you can interpret it perfectly to the parties present. We have to have good mental retention so we can help the patient and provider understand each other to the best of our abilities.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Lesly!
I love how you connected having knowledge of prefixes and suffixes to your confidence as an interpreter and how it makes you feel more secure in your job.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Cristina,
I agree with all of the points you made about how it makes it easier for your brain if you simply memorize what each prefix and suffix mean instead of trying to memorize every single medical term.

[Milleny Arantess]

I think that as a medical interpreter it’s helpful and important to know and understand the suffixes and prefixes used in medical terminology because you will always understand and know what the provider is talking about. When you know the prefixes and suffixes you will be able to take apart what the provider is talking about and then piece it back together to interpret it, in certain situations. I say in certain situations because it’s not always that the medical terminology that the doctor uses will be able to be broken apart. For example, if the patient has Parkinson’s disease there is no way for you to break up the word Parkinson’s like you would myocardial infarction.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Joesph,
I love how you bring your own experiences with federal laws and regulations into the conversation. It teaches me a lot, and I agree with you in the fact that Executive Order 13166 does do an amazing job of covering the most critical points, but as you said the medical interpreting field is very complex and hard to create specific and extraordinary laws for.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Leonisa,
I agree with you and the fact that Executive Order 13166 lays a vital foundation for the healthcare field. I also agree that it’s something that needs to be reinforced at all times and updated so that it matches the current state of the U.S.

[Milleny Arantess]

I think that present day legislation is not enough. Although we are where we are today because of the legislation that paved the way and because of the one that we currently work by it still isn’t good enough when we think of how the world is ever changing. The world is ever changing but I’m only going to be talking about the U.S. In the U.S we have new cultures and languages arrisin everyday from people moving here from other countries and from parents raising their kids to know and understand their native culture. There is always going to be a necessity for interpreters that speak more languages, more security, more funding, more enforcing of the legislation, and a lot more overall.
I do see that Massachusetts applies executive order 13166. Whenever I go to appointments I am always offered an interpreter for my parents who don’t speak English that well. The interpreters are always respectful and always do a good job. Massachusetts also implemented their own law, The Massachusetts Emergency Room Interpreter Bill. This bill states that every hospital must provide an interpreter in the emergency room free of charge. This bill also makes it so hospitals can’t make family or friends interpret for the patient. But, like I stated before even though these laws currently exist, and they are good laws, there is always a way to make it even better so that it can provide for the current crazy state of the U.S.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Cristina,
the way you explain the first role, message conveyer, is so clear and understandable it’s amazing.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Yona, I still think it’s crazy that we go to the same school!
I agree with all of the points you brought up and I love the examples you used to explain what each role means. I especially love the example of cultural broker/clarifier becsuse it’s kind of a hard role to explain and understand and with your example it’s very understandable.

[Milleny Arantess]

Hi Alexandra!

Thank you for your comment and for correcting me! I see how starting off talking in a very common and easy way can be offense and how it is important to do a pre-session even in an emergency situation.

[Milleny Arantess]

Thank you Lesly!
Interpreters are hired for the benefit of the patient so we need to make sure they are being treated correctly and receiving everything they can when we realize that the patient doesn’t really understand what is going on.

[Milleny Arantess]

Lesly, you talked about a point that I didn’t think about, that going into an appointment, the patient and provider may have different objectives. A pre-session truly can help the patient and provider know what they each want to talk about and figure out how to navigate that. It makes it easier for the patient and provider to talk and have a flow of communication when they know each other’s objectives and can think about how to talk about both.

[Milleny Arantess]

Thank you, Lesly!
An interpreter should always make every situation as easy as possible for everyone involved because it’s not an easy job so simplifying where we can will help everyone in the long run.

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