On April 16 we held our graduation ceremony for yet another class of medical interpreters. It marked the completion of a 45-hour course in basic skills of medical interpreting, which was held at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
Integrating more medical interpreters into health care staffs
The course helped people working in medical institutions to learn interpretation skills in order to volunteer in the institution in which they work. The 27 participants came from Shaare Zedek, Hadassah Ein Kerem, ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital, as well as additional places outside of Jerusalem. The course dealt both with principles of interpreting, various issues in the field, as well as relevant vocabulary in Arabic, Amharic, Russian and French. A special thank-you goes to Messele Mamo, who joined the team at the last minute to teach the section for Amharic-speakers.
Course graduates are already being integrated into interpreting teams in the institutions in which they work. We just got an SMS from one participant, thanking us for the tools he learned in the course, and exclaiming how they help him make health care more accessible to the French-speaking patients he translates for.
Many thanks to Dr. Adit Dayan, Director of Community Services at the Jerusalem Foundation, who distributed the graduation certificates. And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its strategic partnership in developing Cultural Competency for more than the past decade.
