Medical...

[duaa]

Hola! I have been studying spanish for sometime in college and have a decent, but not perfect, command over the language. The issue is that i want to become an interpreter in hospitals. In general they have test you take in order to be able to do it. Even though one of my majors is spanish my uni does not offer any classes in anything besides lit and linguistics(i am in a top ten school and they still do not have anything!). So I am confused and scared I will never make my goal of becoming an interpreter. I just bought the book "interpreter rx" but it is confusing. Anyway I need advice. Thanks in advance!

[Torres]

I'm guessing your first language is English?

[duaa]

I am latino but english is my first language followed by hindi/urdu

[poli]

I sometimes translate from Spanish to English and vice versa in a medical
environment. If your translation will be done between doctor and patient,
you may not find your task very difficult. Many medical terms come
directly from Latin in both English and Spanish. Translating what the
patients' chief complaint is from Spanish to English and translating the
course of action from English to Spanish is usually not difficult. It's
important to brush up your medical vocabulary.

There is a person in the forums whose principal job is medical translator. She may provide you with more insight.

If you plan to translate formal documents, your task will be more difficult.

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by duaa

Even though one of my majors is spanish my uni does not offer any classes in anything besides lit and linguistics(i am in a top ten school and they still do not have anything!).

Good. A university isn't supposed to be about vocational training.

Take the Spanish lit classes, and try to discuss the material in Spanish with your coursemates and whatever tutorial staff there are. Your university probably has an Hispanic Society: join it, and get involved - I'd even suggest running for a committee post doing something like event organisation.

To focus specifically on the translation side of things, first look for summer courses. Second, do translation. Get the DVDs of a medical TV series which has interactions between doctors and patients (House? I haven't seen it...) and play them through, pausing every sentence to translate. Then when you're getting the hang of it, pause every two sentences. (In real life, when doing non-simultaneous translation, you often have to tap someone on the arm to remind them that they're supposed to let you translate).

[wrholt]

Adding on to the comments of others: if you will be interpreting between a medical provider and a patient, you will also need to learn the layperson's words that people from different regions, different social background, and different educational backgrounds use to identify parts of the body and the symptoms that they may experience.

[PNEFC1888]

Hi there duaa!
I know your post was a while ago!
There is a pretty good CD i bought called
"Spanish For Medical Professionals - Core Phrases" It has a red cross on the cover.
You can get it on Amazon and covers a lot of core spanish medical phrases.
Hope that helps.