Background: Trained medical interpreters are instrumental to patient satisfaction and quality of care. They are especially important in student-run clinics, where many patients have limited English proficiency. Because student-run clinics have ties to their medical schools, they have access to bilingual students who may volunteer to interpret, but are not necessarily formally trained. Methods: To study the feasibility and efficacy of leveraging medical student volunteers to improve interpretation services, we performed a pilot study at the student-run clinic at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In each fall semester in 2012-2015, we implemented a 6-h course providing didactic and interactive training on medical Spanish interpreting techniques and language skills to bilingual students. We then assessed the impact of the course on interpreter abilities. Results: Participants' comfort levels, understanding of their roles, and understanding of terminology significantly increased after the course (p < 0.05), and these gains remained several months later (p < 0.05) and were repeated in an independent cohort. Patients and student clinicians also rated participants highly (averages above 4.5 out of 5) on these measures in real clinical encounters. Conclusions: These findings suggest that a formal interpreter training course tailored for medical students in the setting of a student-run clinic is feasible and effective. This program for training qualified student interpreters can serve as a model for other settings where medical students serve as interpreters.
CITATION STYLE
Diaz, J. E. L., Ekasumara, N., Menon, N. R., Homan, E., Rajarajan, P., Zamudio, A. R., … Soriano, R. P. (2016). Interpreter training for medical students: pilot implementation and assessment in a student-run clinic. BMC Medical Education, 16(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0760-8
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