"This Manual is a unique book. Descriptive rather than prescriptive, it is based on daily life reality instead of situations created in a vacuum. It has been created due to the growing need to train interpreters in the extremely important field of health services. It is written by an interpreter and for interpreters and people interested in serving others through the use of languages. In it, two different sets of culture come into contact: that of the English-speaking health provider and that of the native speaker of Spanish whose functioning in English is still limited or nonexistent.
This Manual is based on the author's experience, which spans for over three decades of interpreting work in the medical, legal, socio-economic and diplomatic fields and a similar amount of time dedicated to teaching and training.
The contents of this book reflect health-provider / patient encounters and situations that arise due to the use of different languages by each participant.
Comments, discussions and exercises in this Manual are geared to honing interpreting skills and to help each participant in the interpreter's mediated medical encounter understand each other better. Ultimately, interpreting amounts to just that: mediating between two or more cultures and building bridges between them."
