Page 12 - The Medical Interprete

THE MEDICAL INTERPRETER

Soon after, community interpreting spread to Europe, the United States and Canada, particularly
medical interpreting. The U.S. Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf established sign language
interpreting as a profession in the 1960s, and American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters performed
a great deal of professional medical interpreting from that point on.

The first international conference on community interpreting was held in 1995 near Toronto, Canada,
by an organization called Critical Link (now Critical Link International, or CLI). Medical interpreting
played a key role in that conference. Today, CLI hosts its international conference every three years
and its sessions always include medical interpreting.

However, medical interpreting did not truly establish itself as a profession in the United States until
the 1990s, and only in the 2000s did it begin to professionalize across the country.

Medical interpreting

Medical Interpreting in United States

Figure 1-B: A Timeline of Medical Interpreting

One Hospital in California

At UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA, 30%-35% of patients have limited proficiency in
English, said Elena Morrow, manager of interpretive services. The hospital has 41 staff members who
interpret 16 different languages, she said.

Spanish is the most popular language, followed by Russian, Ukrainian, Hmong and Mien. The interpreters
handle about 37,000 encounters every year, Morrow said.

“We do see the demand is quite steady and increasing little by little every year,” she said. 3

3 Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2012/12/07/medical-interpreters-help-communicate/
1755007/

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