Certification looming for medical interpreters in Spanish?

McALLEN — Gloria Ramos makes a lot of trips to the doctor’s office.

The 38-year-old McAllen resident stays current with her two children’s regular checkups but also has to accompany her Spanish-speaking mother when she goes for medical appointments.

“She knows enough English to get by and pay for things,” Ramos said. “To describe what hurts in her back or why … I have to help translate a lot.”

That language barrier frequently hampers effective communication and treatment in Rio Grande Valley medical offices, said Glenn Martinez, director of medical Spanish at the University of Texas-Pan American.

His program offers one of the only medical Spanish minors in the country and attempts to alleviate the strain between English-speaking doctors and Spanish-speaking patients.

However, UTPA recently canceled his intensive, two-week Medical Interpreter Training Seminar, which had been scheduled for August. 

Despite low enrollment, Martinez said, the economic and demographic need remains.

“We’ve received a lot of interest for a different course planned in spring,” he said. “Language affects your health, and it’s good to know why you might be dying and in your own language.”

According to the university’s Office of Continuing Education, 12 participants would have justified keeping the seminar. Only four signed up.

Martinez and Continuing Ed’s coordinator, Jayshree Bhat, said prospective students might have shied away from the cost and the time commitment — four hours a night for two weeks. But Bhat said individuals who had expressed initial interest already hoped to sign up for a reboot of the seminar next spring.

“I think the way we are planning it, especially with a heavy online component, is exciting,” Bhat said. “We’ve heard interest from all over the state even. There is interest out there, so we’re rushing to develop a newer product.”

The spring seminar will break the material into more time-friendly components, with simulated walkthroughs of typical hospital scenarios in the online virtual world of Second Life.

Martinez stressed he was dedicated to rolling the seminar out soon, especially considering recent developments in the medical interpreting community.

Last year, the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters was created, and three states already require such a certification. Martinez predicted Texas would follow suit sooner rather than later.

Valley nurses and medical employees could either wait to be pushed out of the market at that point, he said, or develop recognized skills to show their employability at home and in other states facing the same changes.

“We can address the health disparity issues both here and within the general national population,” he said. “There is prime material here if employees took the proper courses. … Otherwise, we might have to import interpreters from elsewhere.”