Communicating with Immigrants: Medical Interpreters in Health Care

摘要

Effective communication between healthcare providers and immigrants who mayspeak little or no English is the foundationof evaluation and treatment and themost important component of the doctor-patient relationship. An immigrantin Rhode Island may speak any one of anumber of languages; Spanish, Portuguese,Cambodian and Italian are themost widely spoken. Although manyphysicians and other health care providersare fluent in a second language, themajority use only English for verbal communicationwith patients. Because of thelarge percentage of immigrants to RhodeIsland who speak English as a second language(ESL), or no English at all, healthcare practitioners must rely on medicalinterpretation services.