Beyond the Bilingual

Healthcare Interpreting: Beyond the Bilingual

with Nouria Belmouloud and Liz Essary

Those who are unacquainted with the profession of healthcare interpreting may be forgiven for assuming that a well-educated bilingual speaker would require little extra preparation before stepping into the role. Nouria Belmouloud and Liz Essary, experienced trainers of healthcare interpreters, will talk about what it really takes to go from being bilingual to becoming an effective healthcare interpreter. In this conversation, Belmouloud and Essary will address which contexts are included under the label “healthcare interpreting” and will explore some of the challenges inherent in the intersection of language, disability, and socioeconomic barriers to healthcare access. They will also talk about how healthcare interpreters prepare themselves to interpret for patients who have experienced trauma, and will share how interpreters contribute to improving the healthcare industry’s outcomes and safety record. After a brief introduction, each speaker will present for about 15 minutes and then we will invite students to respond and ask questions. Finally, we will open the conversation up to questions from the wider audience.

Free and open to the public. Light lunch served. This event is organized by Joan Munné and Melissa Simmermeyer and has been made possible with the support of Forum for Scholars and Publics, the Mary D.B.T. and J.H. Semans International Exchange Fund, Dean of the Humanities, the Department of Romance Studies, the Trinity Language Committee, and Community-Based Teaching and Learning Funds. For more information, visit the Translating Spanish-English and English-Spanish website.