Page 16 - The Medical Interprete

THE MEDICAL INTERPRETER

Ethics and standards

Together, MMIA (later IMIA), CHIA and NCIHC helped pave the way for the profession of medical
interpreting in the United States. Each of these three organizations, IMIA (then MMIA) in 1987
and 1995, CHIA in 2002 and NCIHC in 2004 and 2005, published codes of ethics and standards of
practice. These seminal documents have had a huge impact on the profession.

In addition, IMIA and NCIHC have produced papers and other documents on special topics such
as positioning, telephone interpreting and interpreter credentials. (See www.imiaweb.org and www.
ncihc.org for examples.)

In short, medical interpreting is still a young profession. Yet it has professionalized swiftly. The
progress is exciting, and there has never been a better time to launch a career as a medical interpreter.

Review of Section 1.1

This section offered a brief overview of medical interpreting as a profession.
It defined medical interpreting and suggested that the key principle of medical
interpreting is the concept of communicative autonomy: the capacity to be in
control of, and responsible for, one’s own communication.

This section defined medical interpreting as interpreting for patients, their
families and healthcare staff with the purpose of facilitating access to healthcare.
The larger profession of community interpreting–including medical interpreting–
launched in the 1970s in Australia and Sweden, then spread to Europe, Canada,
the United States and other countries.

Medical interpreting in the United States began in the 1980s and was formally
established by the 1990s, in large part due to language access laws, advocacy,
concerns about patient safety and the work of interpreting associations. Training
and credentialing for U.S. medical interpreters became more widespread in the
2000s. Today, medical interpreting is a vibrant, evolving profession.

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