Training

As I mentioned before, right now I'm going through a training to become a more specialized kind of interpreter in certain areas. Tomorrow I am going to complete two weeks of medical training and next week and the week after, I will be receiving finance and insurance trainings, one each week. For some reason I am particularly worried about recorded statements. I have already interpreted insurance calls, regarding how the accident happened, an if anyone was injured and all that. But just knowing that it's being "recorded" and that sometimes the LEP (Limited English speaking person) is with his/her lawyer, it makes me worry more. Of course, there is also the tiny little detail that I am not very good with auto parts, neither in english nor spanish, I'm sad to say. So I will have to study those more. Finance is the one I am most comfortable with, I just have to get more acquainted with the stock market and investment system in the U.S. With medical we also have to be very careful. In the training we were told that there was a case once (not with one of our interpreters.....THANK GOD!!!), that a on-site interpreter for LAOTIAN (language that they speak in LAOS, near Thailand and China) since there was not a word for suppository in that language, and instead of advising the doctor about this and asking him how she could explain this to the patient, interpreted it as "pill", which is totally wrong, totally different. The patient instead of inserting the suppository through his rectum, was swallowing them....aagghh! Of course, instead of getting better, he was getting worst. When he came back to see the doctor and the doctor found out that he was swallowing them instead of the other way around...you can imagine how upset the doctor was. And the patient said - "well that is what the interpreter told me". Imagine that!! That interpreter could have killed that patient!!! I imagine she was sued or something. But we as interpreters have to be very careful of what we say, and if we are not certain, we can always double check with the person that we are interpreting for.

I still have to get back to the cultural barriers that we encounter. I will mention that some other day. Also I will be posting some of the situations that we find on calls. Let me just say that I have heard on these calls some of the most outrageous and stupid things of my life. Not on all calls of course, but on many. Later!