Interpreter Training
Core Medical Interpreter Training® Program & Workshops
CMIT® program and workshops provides students with intensive training to prepare them for a medical or healthcare interpreting career and national certification.
Introduction
CMIT® is a flexible 100-hour program that covers strategies for effective communication between different cultures in medical or healthcare settings. The training includes twelve hours of medical terminology, anatomy, and physiology, eight hours on the three major Codes of Ethics (CHIA, IMIA, NCIHC), and intensive role-playing to gain and practice new skills and significantly improve patient safety. Our goal is to promote national best practice standards in professional medical interpreting for all limited-English proficient patients requiring assistance. CMIT’s® goal is to help explain the basic components of this relatively new profession using a variety of approaches in a didactic order, including some of the newest developments in the field, such as the incorporation of mobile devices for interpreting services, and the trends in national certification. As of 2017, the seven languages that are available for national certification are Arabic, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Vietnamese, and Spanish. While people have been interpreting for family, neighbors, and friends for millennia, the medical or healthcare interpreting profession is less than 40 years old. As a wave of new immigrants arrived in the United States in large numbers throughout the mid-1970’s, interpreters and others involved in health care began to realize that interpreting a message effectively is not the same as being bilingual. Knowing two languages is just the starting point. It is crucial for the medical or healthcare interpreter to understand the meaning behind the words spoken by patients and their families, and clarify the meaning of the message and cultural context as necessary, in order to achieve the best results for patients and providers of health care. From the beginning, interpreters are pointed to the importance of the innumerable variations of cultural approaches to health and well-being that are at play in interpreted sessions.
Background
CMIT® is an academic program that responds to the growing need to improve the quality of training for interpreters in healthcare settings and to prepare individuals to pass the national certification exams.
CMIT® is an interactive program that provides a 256-page color textbook, a 196-page workbook, multimedia-rich lesson presentations, and periodic lesson and resource updates.
CMIT® was created by interpreters, interpreter trainers, and language access providers with more than 40 years of combined experience in the profession.
CMIT® is currently being taught in seven states, including the state of Oregon, which requires the highest standards of training for medical or healthcare interpreters, and in colleges/universities.
CMIT® is also now available from an online education platform, NICHC eLearning, providing prospective students with more scheduling opportunities and learning environments.
Bibliography
Flores, G., Abreu, M., Pizzo Barone, C., Bachur, R., & Lin, H. (2012). Errors of Medical Interpretation and their potential clinical consequences: A comparison of professional versus ad hoc versus no interpreters. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 545-553.
Ku, L., & Flores, G. (2005). Pay Now or Pay Later: Providing Interpreter Services in Health Care. HealthAffairs, 435-444.
Flores, G. (2006, July 20). Language barriers to health care in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 355(3), 229-231. Retrieved from http://mighealth.net/eu/images/b/bb/Flores3.pdf
Background
CMIT® is an academic program that responds to the growing need to improve the quality of training for interpreters in healthcare settings and to prepare individuals to pass the national certification exams.
CMIT® is an interactive program that provides a 256-page color textbook, a 196-page workbook, multimedia-rich lesson presentations, and periodic lesson and resource updates.
CMIT® was created by interpreters, interpreter trainers, and language access providers with more than 40 years of combined experience in the profession.
CMIT® is currently being taught in seven states, including the state of Oregon, which requires the highest standards of training for medical or healthcare interpreters, and in colleges/universities.
CMIT® is also now available from an online education platform, NICHC eLearning, providing prospective students with more scheduling opportunities and learning environments.
Upcoming Dates
Cost: $800
Instructors: Sofí DiSepio, Debi Saldaña and Gerardo Lazaro
REQUISITE
Proof of linguistic proficiency for working languages (English – target language)
Saturdays (4) & Sundays (4)
Time: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm ET
Tuesdays (11) & Thursdays (10)
Time: 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm ET
Jan-Feb 2023
1/21, 1/22, 1/28, 1/29
2/4, 2/5, 2/11, 2/12
Apr-May 2023
4/15, 4/16, 4/22, 4/23
4/29, 4/30, 5/6, 5/7
October 2023
10/7, 10/8, 10/14, 10/15
10/21, 10/22, 10/28, 10/29
Tuesdays (11) & Thursdays (10)
Time: 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm ET
Workshop Offerings
Continuing Education Units
The NICHC offers skill-building and informational workshops for Medical/Healthcare Interpreters. All CEU workshops provide 2 (two) Continuing Education Units (CEUs) sanctioned by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI), and 0.2 CEUs sanctioned by the National Board for Certified Medical Interpreters (NBCMI).
Culture-Science
- Cultural competency for medical interpreters
- Medication, negotiation, and conflict resolution: A medical interpreter’s toolkit
Medical
- Chronic and infectious diseases: Updates for medical interpreters
- Congestive Heart Failure
- Genetics for medical interpreters
- Orthopaedics for medical interpreters
Interpreting
- Errors in medical interpretation: How to avoid and correct potentially dangerous mistakes
- Ethical dilemmas in medical interpreting
- Interpreting at the emergency department
- Interpreting for patient discharge
- Interpreting in difficult situations: Euphemisms, embarrassing, and aggressive language
- Interpreting in end-of-life situations
- Interpreting in mental health settings
- Interpreting in oncology settings: More than just words
- Interpreting in pediatric settings for children and parents
- Interpreting in therapy settings: Behavioral, occupational, physical, and speech therapies
- Interpreting in trauma settings
- Interpreting religion: From prayers to last rites
- Non-verbal communication and the Medical Interpreter
- Palliative care: Challenges for the medical interpreter
- Tailored interpreting: Dissecting accents in Spanish
Public Health
- Community health: A cross-over for medical interpreters
- Interpreting for medication reconciliation
- LGBTQI issues in healthcare interpreting
- Self-care: Controlling occupational risks for healthcare interpreters
- Social determinants of health and health disparities: Language access as a health risk factor
- The impact of health literacy in the medical encounter
- The interpreter as a public health professional: Interpreters make healthier communities.
Bibliography
Flores, G., Abreu, M., Pizzo Barone, C., Bachur, R., & Lin, H. (2012). Errors of Medical Interpretation and their potential clinical consequences: A comparison of professional versus ad hoc versus no interpreters. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 545-553.
Ku, L., & Flores, G. (2005). Pay Now or Pay Later: Providing Interpreter Services in Health Care. HealthAffairs, 435-444.
Flores, G. (2006, July 20). Language barriers to health care in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 355(3), 229-231. Retrieved from http://mighealth.net/eu/images/b/bb/Flores3.pdf