Interpreter Cases for Cultural Competency Instruction

Abstract

Abstract This resource is a collection of five cases based on clinical scenarios that reflect the challenges of clinical encounters using interpreters. These cases require specialized training for both the standardized patients and the standardized interpreters. They are of different levels of difficulty and can be administered to medical students and residents as teaching cases. The cases utilize interactions that involve both history-taking and counseling. As an example, one case dealing with smoking cessation includes behavior and self-reflection checklists that allow for summative assessment of student communication through interpreters. The resource also includes materials to strengthen and assess student performance, such as: generic communication checklists, checklists specific to the clinical situation and task, standardized patient and interpreter checklists to assess student performance, and checklists for student self-assessment/reflection. The checklists may also be used to stimulate discussion about the challenges of encounters involving interpreters. Teaching medical students and residents to effectively use interpreters is challenging because of the variety of languages and skills of interpreters available. By providing controlled experiences reflecting these challenges we may better prepare students to deal with language barriers in practice.

Keywords

• Health Equity Research
• Professional Competence
• SPs
• Humanistic Environment
• Interpreter
• ESL