Emergency services are critical the world over. NO matter who you are or where you live, you will at one point or another doubtless find yourself in need of emergency services, whether it’s medical professionals, the local police, or the fire department. When you do, you need to be able to communicate quickly, effectively, and meaningfully. Even if you and the local emergency service personnel speak the same language, high-stress circumstances may mean you are not in the best frame of mind to communicate clearly, and even if you know and often communicate in a second language with locals, stress may mean you have difficulty in emergency situations when every second counts.
In the United States, 911 departments often work with nationwide telephone interpretation services to insure accurate communication between callers of any language and emergency dispatchers. Spanish is often one of the most common languages requested, but other languages are requested as well. Interpretation over the phone is often performed consecutively. This style of interpretation involves waiting until each sentence or idea is completed before it is interpreted into the other language.
Since emergencies don’t’ always take place over the telephone, simultaneous interpreting has its place as well. In the emergency room when every moment is critical, there is no time to wait for an interpreter to listen to every word the patient says before interpreting it into the doctor’s or nurse’s language. In this type of situation, simultaneous interpreting is used in order to make sure that critical information is provided as quickly as possible.
Hospitals may employ one or two dedicated interpreters for one or two common languages in the local area, or, more commonly, they will contract with an interpretation agency and/or use bilingual staff, or the family itself may use bilingual family members when available.
These last two solutions are less than ideal due to concerns for the accuracy of the interpretation as well as privacy concerns for the patient. It is preferable if the patient has a professional and experienced simultaneous interpreter who is accustomed to working in high-pressure situations. Interpreters should be able to focus well in noisy environments, should be able to focus on every detail related to the patient’s symptoms, and should be current on medical knowledge in order to convey the doctor’s questions and proposed treatment plan appropriately.
Since the interpretation is being performed simultaneously, the languages, the subject matter, and the interpreter’s impartiality should be flawless. The interpreter should never impose his or her own ideas regarding symptoms or a proposed treatment plan. The highest standard of ethics is essential for any medical interpreter, and since the interpreter works in highly stressful situations, he or she should be capable of committing to assignments without a fixed end time, since no one can know exactly how long such services will be needed. In addition, since simultaneous interpretation means there is almost no pause between the original speaker’s language and the interpretation of that language, the interpreter must be completely fluent in both languages and must be able to negotiate unfamiliar terms and phrases as well as also being comfortable communicating between patients and medical professionals.
Finally, let’s offer some tips for patients who may find themselves in need of emergency services, whether those are over the phone or in person:
- Know how to say your address clearly in the country’s language.
- Familiarize yourself with the second language equivalents for any allergies or common medical issues.
- Keep a card on you at all times which lists any allergies or other medical conditions in your second language.
No one wants to ever experience an emergency, and particularly not in a language they don’t speak. With the support of simultaneous interpretation services at the hospital or on-site, consecutive interpretation services over the phone, and by following the simple tips in this article, you can be assured you have taken every possible step to be prepared in a medical emergency situation.
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You may also be interested in the following:
Ebook: Top Ten Tips for Interpreters and Translators
Article: 8 Things You Need to Know About Translation Equipment
Article: Skills Simultaneous Interpreters Should Bring to the Profession
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