FIRST YEAR AS A MEDICAL INTERPRETER

Welcome to Season Three of 'Interpreters and Interrupters' hosted by Maritza! In this episode, Maritza shares detailed insights about her journey and experiences in becoming a medical interpreter after starting as a legal interpreter in 2007. She outlines valuable tips for anyone considering a career in interpreting, offers advice for job searching and preparing for interviews, and discusses the significance of certifications like Bridging the Gap and CHI. Maritza also touches on the importance of networking, shadowing professionals, and handling real-world challenges faced in both medical and legal interpreting. Join Maritza as she reflects on her first year as a medical interpreter and provides actionable advice for aspiring interpreters.

Transcript

Maritza: [00:00:00] Welcome to season three of Interpreters and Interrupters. I'm your host, Maritza.

 To my amazing subscribers. Welcome back.

To my new friends and new subscribers, thank you and welcome to the community.

Interpreters and Interrupters is a podcast for people who are thinking about becoming an interpreter. Are student interpreters, are new interpreters or interpreters that have been doing this career for quite a while.

Check out, seasons one and two, especially the 20 episodes on terminology practice for medical, legal and general. 

Check out my interview with Athena Matilsky. She talks about legal interpreting, and [00:01:00] gives great tips on how to study for a certification test.

I got to thinking that it would be helpful to you if I shared my first year as a medical interpreter. If you're a legal interpreter, keep watching, I'll have tips for you as well.

I started my interpreting career in 2007 as a legal interpreter. 

Two years ago, I decided to become a medical interpreter.

I started with the basics: terminology, and I also watched a lot of YouTube videos.  Once I felt ready, I signed with an agency that does over the phone and video remote interpreting for medical. I worked from home. The agency paid on time every two weeks.

It was operator led, so I would get a call from a live operator telling me about the assignment. I wasn't required to work a number of hours, but I figured out real quick how many hours I had to work in order to meet the amount of money that I needed to pay for my [00:02:00] expenses,After spending a year over the phone interpreting I decided to apply to the local hospitals. I started my job search in February of 2024.

after getting my Bridging the Gap certification. Bridging the Gap certification tells the employer that you have the minimum requirements to work as a medical interpreter. It doesn't teach you how to interpret. It goes over ethics, how tos, positioning, anatomy, terminology.

So by the time that you get the certification, you feel ready to work as a medical interpreter, but again, it doesn't teach you how to be an interpreter.

Just like other jobs. I searched on job boards like indeed.com. And I applied online, making sure that my resume had the key words that were listed on the job description. I applied to the three major hospitals in my city. I and I got zero responses. About three months later, I applied again and I got [00:03:00] one call, which was like a 15 -minute screening call, and I never heard from that hospital again.

In August, I received a CHI, national Medical Certification. Now that I had that certification, I figured that I had a better chance of at least getting an interview at one of the hospitals. 

This time around I received a response from one of the hospitals within two hours, and the very next day, I received the response from the two other hospitals. Wow. I was super excited. Tip here is to get certified. Certification, whether you're medical or a legal interpreter opens doors.

Even if you're a freelance interpreter, certification gets you respect and job opportunities.

 I interviewed at two of the hospitals that I really wanted to work for. One was a children's hospital and the other was a teaching hospital. It's a hospital that has medical students doing their residency or a fellowship program.

Before you get invited [00:04:00] to an interview, a recruiter will call you 

If they feel that you are a good candidate, they'll submit your resume and your cover letter to the supervisor or department manager. 

My interview with a standard interpreter interview. the supervisor, the department manager, and some senior interpreters that are currently on the team. Prepare for the interview by studying questions. For example, what's your strength? What's your weakness? Tell us about a time that you had a conflict. What happened and how did you resolve that conflict? Tell us about how you get along with people from other cultures.

Tell us about a time when you made a mistake. How did you correct it? What was the outcome?

Tell us about any recognitions that you've had in prior jobs, any projects that you worked on. Tell us why you want to work for our hospital. Prepare yourself. You can't just walk into an interview without preparation. Watch YouTube videos on interviewing, look up articles or even free classes on [00:05:00] LinkedIn, on how to interview, how to write a resume, how to write a cover letter.

AI platforms can help you with resume writing and cover letters. My favorite job aid platform is Teal. Teal hq.com. It keeps track of all the jobs that you have applied for, company name, recruiter name, phone number, email, and the date. When did you apply?

It also uses chat, GPT to help you write your resume and cover letter. 

Make sure that you have questions to ask the interviewers.

That's usually the last question. Do you have any questions for us? 

Be ready, ask smart questions. Have them written down.

Coming up with questions for the interviewer should be easy. Basically what you would like to know more about the job. After the interview, you're either told that you're going to be tested over the phone with a vendor, or they might test you right there. And that is usually really nerve wracking 

 We are used to [00:06:00] having people watch us while we interpret, but, when you are in an interview, it's a little different because you're already stressed out. 

And now you're going to be tested on your skill. What I do is that I try to zone everyone out so that I'm just in listening mode and I don't really look at anyone. I just look at my steno pad, listen, write down a few symbols or notes to help me remember what was said so that I could render perfectly

at the children's hospital. That was the case. There were about six people there, 

The teaching hospital uses a language services vendor. I found both tests to be quite easy. Of course, you always have those everyday words that you don't think about that tend to come up, but just do the best you can. 

A big tip is practice with YouTube videos, watch medical or legal videos and interpret. Keep a notebook or tablet handy so you can write down the words that you don't know.My favorite was always Judge Judy.

You will have situations where [00:07:00] you're interpreting and legal terminology comes up like medical, durable power of attorney.

When you're legal interpreting, there will be medical terms that come up. Especially, for example, in a case where somebody was injured, and immigration cases where someone is claiming that they need to stay in the country because their family member or themselves cannot get the medical attention that they need in their country of origin.

A few weeks later, I got a job offer from both hospitals. I was very excited, but I had to pick one. Here's a tip. After the interview, see yourself working with the people that are a part of the team. See yourself working at that legal office or hospital.

See yourself in that role.

On my first day at work, of course, I got to meet the team. There were about 36 interpreters, different languages, all wonderful, and very smart people.

Be friends with all your [00:08:00] team members. Take time to have lunch with each of them individually so that they can get to know you and also talk about their experiences working at that hospital or legal office. I'm sure they'll have stories to tell that you can learn from in case the same situation happens to you.

Now, sometimes people will talk badly about their job or other team members stay away from that. Everybody has their own experience. If they don't like their job, why are they still there? And talking about other team members is never a good thing. If you notice that there are cliques within the team, stay away from cliques.

Get along with everybody.

I spent about two weeks shadowing other interpreters, going to different appointments at the clinics.

If you are a student, call a local legal office or court or hospital and ask the language services manager if they can allow you to shadow someone on their team. [00:09:00] Shadowing other people is one of the best things you can do. You get to see that day in the life of a medical or legal interpreter.

It also helps you determine if you want to be an interpreter. Sometimes when you shadow others, you realize that, yeah, maybe this job isn't for me.

Here's another tip. join an interpreting association in your locale, you can meet other interpreters. Interpreters love to share what they do especially if the other person is going to be a fellow interpreter in the future.

When it was time to go solo, yeah, I was pretty nervous,

 I figured that I would run into the same problems that my fellow interpreters run into every day.

Patients that would waive the interpreter to allow for their family member to interpret. 

Medical staff wanting to speak in the patient's language when they don't have a strong command of the language. Actually, in the hospital that I work at, no one is allowed to speak to a patient in the patient's language unless they have taken a test [00:10:00] that qualifies themBut there's always somebody that wants to override the policy and speak to the patient in the patient's language.

There are times that I have to attend a procedure to interpret Procedures that I go to are eye surgery, cardiac stress test, and steroid injections. Those are most of the procedures that I go to.

I figure that I would cringe whenever I would go to these procedures and I was right. It is kind of cringey,

Just like the medical staff, I have to suit up. I have to wear a hairnet, a mask. A bunny suit and sometimes I have to wear a lead suit if X-rays are going to be used. Other procedures are more simple like an MRI, a CAT scan or radiation treatment.

Whenever you are in a procedure, make sure that you are aware of what's around you and under your feet. My suggestion is that you ask the medical staff, where do they want you to stand? If you're a legal [00:11:00] interpreter, same thing. If you go to a courtroom or a jail, make sure that you ask, what can I bring?

Because some courtrooms or jails do not allow any electronics, and that includes your cell phone. Or they may not allow you to bring a pencil and a pad.

 Whenever I go to the behavioral unit, I can only take my cell phone, which I keep in my pocket, and my lanyard has to be quick release in case there's a situation where somebody tries to grab my lanyard. Before going on, if you want to help other interpreters find this channel, drop a like, subscribe or follow on the audio only platforms like Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, and YouTube music. I have to apologize to the Spotify followers. I don't know how I managed to create two Spotify accounts, so I had to delete one.

And with that I deleted quite a bit of followers. So I am so sorry. 

One [00:12:00] of my team members asked me if I missed legal interpreting. Honestly, I do.

 The reason why is because as a legal interpreter, I have distance with the limited English person, I am either sitting next to the judge, next to the prosecutor, next to the defense attorney, or across from a table, and I'm usually wearing a headset.

It's the distance in a legal setting that I miss. In a medical setting, patients want to sit next to you. They wanna chit chat. They even wanna hug and kiss you. What I do is that I wait for them to sit down in the waiting area, and that way I can sit somewhere else.

Sometimes they end up sitting next to me, how I don't know, to avoid conversation I simply say, "I'm sorry, I have to answer some emails from work." 

They are wonderful people. Sometimes they're very sad because of their medical condition, and I understand that.

Hope you enjoyed this video. Hope the information is [00:13:00] helpful to you.

Thank you for watching.