[Yona Souza]

The benefits of doing a pre-session with yourself: it allows you to envision your approach before the appointment starts, by preparing yourself with the right tools and information that you’re supposed to know beforehand. This not only helps you mentally prepare for the encounter but also ensures the whole process is successful.

The benefits of doing a pre-session with the patient and provider: allows you to set the ground between personal and professional roles since speaking the same language as the patient might seem as if you can answer any questions they ask when instead, the interpreter’s role is to convey the information from the patient to the provider and vice-versa.

Some possible scenarios that might be avoided by doing a pre-session are: doing a pre-session avoids many problems if the interpreter makes the right use of the CEFF protocols which stand for: confidentiality; everything; flow; and first-person. The interpreter can go over the mechanics of the encounter by explaining how it works, highlighting that confidential information will always be kept, and ensuring that everything the patient mentions will be conveyed to the provider and vice-versa. Doing a pre-session also helps both ends of the encounter understand how long they can talk for the interpreter to retain all the information and convey it.

I believe that it’s always necessary to do a pre-session with providers in regular daily scenarios when the appointment is running smoothly. Even if it’s a short introduction, a pre-session is a way to professionally introduce yourself and allows the provider to better understand your role as an interpreter and your approaches during the appointment. Pre-sessions are appreciated by patients and providers, making the encounter less awkward and more comfortable during the meeting time. However, each scenario has its particular circumstances and in emergency cases, a pre-session isn’t necessary because it wouldn’t be useful to spend time doing it.

[Yona Souza]

Lesly, I completely agree with the points you wrote. And yes, I also think finding the perfect match when translating a word as a translator is really tricky because some words simply don’t exist in a different language. As you said, it all comes from cultural context and terminology. You gave really interesting insight, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!

[Yona Souza]

Leonisa, the memory retention challenge you wrote about is something worth mentioning! I completely agree with you, and your point made me think more about the challenges when it comes to instantly interpreting information if the interpreter doesn’t know how to convey a word or piece of information clearly. This may become an issue but I believe that with practice and daily word usage, interpreters develop and strengthen their skills.

Thank you for sharing your thouhgts with us!

[Yona Souza]

One of the biggest differences between an interpreter and a translator is that translators may spend multiple hours transforming the words from one language to the other. They recognize not just the meaning of individual words (as if the words’ meanings are analyzed on their own), but the overall context and true meaning of the content being translated.

An interpreter doesn’t translate word for word because the interpreting happens in real-time, resulting in a completely different duration than a translator. As an interpreter, you’re supposed to understand the meaning and context behind the words used by the person and use it to communicate the message in another language.

A key factor to interpreting is that you can’t omit any sort of information or feeling when communicating the information in a different language. An interpreter goes beyond just interpreting what the patient is saying, its job is to clearly express the person’s feelings and emotions to the doctor. This is a challenge to this role since you’re required to have social intelligence in addition to interpreting verbal utterances.

A translator only works with the words in front of them, and of course, the context behind them, this can be somewhat easier than interpreting because the translator doesn’t have to recognize the emotions or feelings behind the words written, they just simply transcribe the information. However it is very important to recognize that translating successfully takes more time and it can be a challenge to transform words from one language to another, since some words may be present in one language, but don’t exist in other languages.

Although both professions are extremely important, it’s crucial to understand that interpreters are not translators because they use different tools and methods of delivering the information presented to them.

[Yona Souza]

Hello Milleny! I’m so excited to know we attend the same college. I love that you’re passionate about giving back to the community as well. We have so much in common besides the language we speak 😉

[Yona Souza]

Hello Leonisa, your story is very smillar to mine and I’m so excited to start working with you in this course!

[Yona Souza]

Hello everyone!

My name is Yoná, I’m 19 years old. I was born in the state of Bahia, Brazil, but I currently live in Massachusetts. My first language is Portuguese, but I also speak English— as you can already tell from this post!—and I’ve learned some Spanish by working at a Hispanic Restaurant during high school.

I’m currently attending Brandeis University in Waltham Massachusetts. As I work toward fulfilling both my major and pre-med requirements, I saw the opportunity to become a certificated as a medical interpreter a really good resource.

I moved to the United States five years ago, and I remember needing a medical interpreter whenever I had to get check-ups at the hospital. After mastering English in seven months, I was finally able to speak directly with my physician. However, my parents still needed help due to the language barrier. Experiences like these made me realize how valuable being bilingual can be in helping the communities surrounding me, people who go through the same situations as my parents and I did. This certification course will allow me to professionally assist others which Is something I’m passionate about, while also developing social skills that will benefit me in my future career as a pediatrician.

I’m super excited to start this new journey and get to know everyone participating in this course. I hope to gain more knowledge and useful skills, but also to grow as a person—because being an interpreter is not just a profession, but a way to communicate and advocate for others’ needs.

[Author]

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