San Joaquin Nurse Offers Training for Medical Interpreters
To overcome language and cultural barriers in the San Joaquin Valley and across the state, Marilyn Mochel is coordinating the Central California Interpreter Training Project, the Scripps-McClatchy Western Service/Ventura County Star reports in a profile. The project helps teach medical interpreters how to communicate with "both types of healers" -- traditional healers, or shamans, and Western health care providers. Mochel said, "Lack of communication leads to misunderstanding that leads to fear that people have for the whole health care system." Mochel, a nurse and member of the California Health-Care Interpreters Association standards and certification committee, is a "leading authority" on medical interpreting, Scripps-McClatchy/Star reports. Crossing "medicine's cultural divide," Mochel administers Partners in Healing, a six-week series of classes that includes a hospital tour for participating shamans, as well as question and answer sessions with pharmacists. While serving as a nurse in a diabetes center in the early nineties, Mochel noted that many of her patients who spoke languages other than English "had cases that were out of control." She said that it was "failure [that] propelled her to become an advocate for medical interpreters." Mochel is currently developing a one-year interpreter course at Reedley College (Scripps-McClatchy Western Service/Ventura County Star, 10/16).
This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.