Certified medical interpreters provide better services.

In health care today, many people, nurses included, are called on to become informal medical interpreters. What often is not considered, however, is that medical interpreters should be specially trained. Just being capable of speaking the language does not make a person able--or even willing--to interpret medical information.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 guaranteed everyone in the United States equal access to all healthcare institutions supported by federal funds, and those institutions often have interpreters on hand to ensure that they can provide such access. However, those interpreters can be the nearest bilingual nurse or aide with no training in translation. A problem with this is that such staff members may not be equally proficient in both languages, and medical terms are even more difficult to translate, especially when the second language is not as familiar to interpreters. As such, interpreters have become cautious or reluctant to translate medical information, fearing that they may make a mistake.

Several states have developed guidelines and standards for training and certifying medical interpreters, including California, Massachusetts, and Washington. In some states, the cost of a medical interpreter is covered by patients' health insurance. For more information, visit the following Web sites.

* American Translators Association Certification: www.atanet.org/certification/index.php

* Translator and Interpreter Organizations by State: www.lep.gov/statetrans.html

* California State Personnel Board Certification: www.cps.ca.gov/spb/spbta

* Massachusetts Medical Interpreters Association: www.mmia.org/education/conferences.asp

* Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Certification Program: http://www1.dshs.wa.gov/MSA/ltc/itsvcs.html.

Elisa Becze, ONS Staff Writer