friday Keynote
Pilar Ortega, MD, MGM
Clinician Multilingualism: A Missing Piece in the Language Access Puzzle
Across the United States, millions of patients depend on communication in non-English languages in order to best access and receive safe, high-quality health care. While the field of language access has made major strides in interpreter training and standards, one critical component remains understudied and often overlooked: the language skills of clinicians themselves. This keynote presentation will explore new research on clinician multilingualism and its implications for patient experience, clinician and interpreter workflow, and health system quality. Drawing on empirical findings, Dr. Ortega will describe the Physician Oral Language Observation Matrix (POLOM), a validated tool designed to assess clinicians’ language proficiency in clinical contexts. She will examine how standardized clinician proficiency assessment can clarify roles, support safer team-based care, and ultimately enhance the working relationships between clinicians and medical interpreters. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how clinician language skills can be evaluated and incorporated as a key piece of the language access puzzle—and why interpreters and clinicians should be partners in shaping the future of multilingual care.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:
- Describe current evidence about clinician multilingualism, including what is known, what remains unknown, and how clinician language skills impact communication quality and interpreter workflow.
- Explain the purpose and evidence for the Physician Oral Language Observation Matrix (POLOM) as a method for assessing clinician language proficiency in health care settings.
- Identify ways that validated clinician language assessments can support interpreters, improve interprofessional collaboration, and contribute to safer, more effective team-based multilingual care.
Dr. Pilar Ortega is a Latina multilingual board-certified emergency medicine physician, scientist, and executive leader with expertise in language access in health care and medical education. Dr. Ortega is Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Clinician Multilingualism, where she develops and implements scalable solutions for teaching and testing clinician skills for communicating with patients in non-English languages. Dr. Ortega is also Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Medical Spanish, a non-profit organization focused on education, research, mentorship, and collaborations to improve health for the Spanish-speaking population.
Describe current evidence about clinician multilingualism, including what is known, what remains unknown, and how clinician language skills impact communication quality and interpreter workflow.
Explain the purpose and evidence for the Physician Oral Language Observation Matrix (POLOM) as a method for assessing clinician language proficiency in health care settings.
She holds an appointment as Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Education at the University of Illinois Chicago and serves as a member of the executive committee for the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement.
Dr. Ortega has published more than 55 peer-reviewed publications and four books, including the popular textbook series, Spanish and the Medical Interview, for physicians to enhance their Spanish-language clinical skills. She serves as Collection Editor at the MedEdPORTAL journal and as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges Research in Medical Education committee. She is also a medical advisor in the development of the first online, open access Panhispanic Dictionary of Medical Terminology (Diccionario panhispánico de términos médicos), a project involving the academies of medicine of 13 Spanish-speaking countries around the globe.
Dr. Ortega earned her undergraduate degree in philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University, her Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, her residency in emergency medicine at the University of Chicago, and a master’s degree in graphic medicine from the Universidad Internacional de Andalucía.
saturday Keynote
Olga Valdman, MD
Human Connection in Healthcare: Why Medical Interpreters
Matter More Than Ever
Dr. Valdman is the Founder and Executive Director of Worcester RISE for Health and an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass). She practices Family Medicine with obstetrics and is passionate about caring for families and attending births.
Dedicated to serving vulnerable populations both locally and globally, Dr. Valdman’s work with Worcester’s refugee community began during medical school when she co-founded the African Community Education (ACE) program alongside Kaska Yawo. ACE, a non-profit supporting African refugee and immigrant youth and families in achieving educational success and socio-economic stability through access to academic support, leadership development, cultural expression, and community outreach.
After completing her residency at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Dr. Valdman returned to Worcester, drawn by her deep connection with ACE and the city’s refugee and immigrant populations. She joined the Family Health Center of Worcester (FHCW), where she spent a decade strengthening refugee health programs. In December 2022, Dr. Valdman left FHCW to launch Worcester RISE for Health, believing that effective refugee and immigrant care must be community-based and co-located with other community-based organizations.
At UMass, Dr. Valdman serves as Director of Global Health Programs in the Family Medicine department. She has built and sustained international partnerships in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Liberia, Kenya, and Ghana. With a $1.5 million USAID grant, her team collaborated with colleagues in Liberia to establish the country’s first Family Medicine Residency training program. She also recently helped launch a Spanish language training program for Family Medicine residents, ensuring graduates achieve fluency and gain a deep understanding of Worcester’s Latinx communities. Dr. Valdman also serves as the advisor to several student groups at UMass Chan. Nationally, Dr. Valdman is a member of the Society for Refugee Health Providers, presented at multiple conferences on topics of refugee health, global health, and border health, and is a recipient of a number of awards and recognitions.