Hola, soy intérprete: An Examination of the Roles of Medical Interpreters

The United States is an increasingly multicultural society, where there is a growing number of people who do not speak English as their first language, or who have limited English proficiency. Medical interpreters are a vital resource to be able to provide these individuals with their legal right to health care access in their language of preference. This thesis evaluates the general roles of medical interpreters and examines the nature of their various roles outside of strict interpretation through investigating the relationship between interpreters and providers, the relationship between interpreters and patients, and the interpreter roles of a cultural broker and a patient advocate. This research was conducted through about eighteen hours of shadowing individual Spanish-English medical interpreters at a large public teaching hospital and through interviews with eight Spanish-English interpreters from this hospital. The findings of this thesis suggest that the structure of the hospital system and the rules of the department constrain the interpreters from fully being able to provide the best care possible to the patients.Bachelor of Art