Training

The Core Medical Interpreter Training^™ (CMIT^™) in affiliation with The National Institute for Coordinated Health Care (NICHC) is offered in classroom and online learning environments. Currently, we are observing the recommended Covid-19 guidelines and CMIT^™ is offered 100% online.

The CMIT^™ program provides students with intensive training to prepare them for a healthcare interpreting career and national certification.

INTRODUCTION

We offer this program to bilingual or multilingual individuals, who are either currently working in health care, or who are interested in obtaining an entry-level credential in the field of medical interpreting. The training covers all basic aspects of interpreting in health care, including the roles, modes, ethics, and current professional and regulatory guidelines. CMIT^™ also focuses on medical terminology, body systems and major chronic diseases through role-plays, drills, and language-specific coaching when available.

CMIT^™ is a flexible 100-hour program that covers strategies for effective communication between different cultures in 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 interpreting profession is less than 40 years old. As the latest wave of new immigrants started to arrive in the United States in large numbers in 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 interpreter to understand the meaning behind the words spoken by patients and their families, 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 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 (KY, NV, OR, PA, VA, WA), including the state of Oregon that requires the highest standards of training for healthcare interpreters, and in colleges/universities.

CMIT^™ is now available also from an online education platform (NICHC eLearning), providing the 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