Agenda: Friday, May 15, 2026

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 assessments 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.

Objectives: 

By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:

1. Describe current evidence about clinician multilingualism, including what is known, what remains unknown, and how clinician language skills impact communication quality and interpreter workflow.
2. 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.
3. Identify ways that validated clinician language assessments can support interpreters, improve interprofessional collaboration, and contribute to safer, more effective team-based multilingual care.

Designated Interpreters (DI) and Deaf Professionals (DP) have found great success in defining their dynamic through what has become known as the DI/DP model. This necessitates the two have formed a relationship over a period of time where the traditional understanding of an interpreter’s role-space is challenged by the unique demands one faces when functioning in this capacity. This is further complicated by the systemic barriers healthcare providers with disabilities face working in and navigating the healthcare system.  

Objectives:

1. Describe the systemic barriers and pathological discrimination faced by Deaf healthcare professionals in the workplace.
2. Describe the unique complexities of providing interpreting services to a Deaf healthcare professional and their patients.
3. Explain the function of a designated interpreter.
4. Explore tools to evaluate their preparedness to work as an interpreter in this capacity.

Palliative care involves some of the most emotionally complex and ethically sensitive conversations in healthcare, such as discussing prognosis, treatment limitations, goals of care, and end-of-life decisions. When patients and families have limited English proficiency, professional medical interpreters play a critical role in ensuring clear communication, cultural understanding, and compassionate support. However, interpreting in palliative care settings goes beyond word-for-word translation. It requires awareness of cultural beliefs about illness and death, navigating family dynamics, understanding clinical goals, and managing significant emotional weight.

This interactive workshop will explore the essential role of medical interpreters in palliative and end-of-life care. Participants will gain insight into the nature of palliative care, common communication challenges, and nuanced interpretation techniques needed to accurately and ethically convey sensitive information. Through real case examples, practical scenarios, and reflective discussion, we will address boundaries, advocacy, collaboration with the clinical team, and the impact of cultural expectations on decision-making. The workshop will also offer strategies for coping with the emotional burden of interpreting traumatic or heartbreaking conversations, including self-awareness, debriefing, and institutional support. By the end, participants will be equipped with practical tools to provide high-quality, culturally responsive interpretation while protecting their own well-being.

Objectives:

1. Define the role and goals of palliative care and differentiate it from hospice or curative treatment.
2. Apply strategies for navigating family dynamics, including when the family wants to withhold information or speak on behalf of the patient.
3. Develop coping strategies for emotional burden and moral distress, including self-care techniques, debriefing, and institutional resources.
4. Promote ethical and culturally responsive language access in palliative care through collaboration and advocacy.

Medical interpreters are essential participants in the complex tapestry of health care that is both linguistically and culturally responsive to patients. The provision of high-quality healthcare from multiple points of access and across multiple specialties must be carefully designed to meet the needs of patients from other cultures and preferring to speak a language other than English (LOTE).It is becoming increasingly recognized that physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains and other health care clinicians provide more effective care across language and cultural differences when they integrate professional medical interpreters (PMI) into the health care team. However, the manner in which medical interpreters are integrated into healthcare teams is hugely variable across specialties, hospitals and healthcare systems. Yet, the provision of care from multiple points of access and across multiple specialties including clinical research studies, must be carefully designed to meet the needs of patients from other cultures and preferring to speak a language other than English (LOTE). For comprehensive, truly patient centered care addressing the needs of all of our patients, it is critical to integrate the medical interpreter into both direct patient care teams and into non-clinical spaces, including research/quality improvement, education, program and policy development teams. This multi-disciplinary and culturally diverse panel of professionals from three different Boston teaching hospitals will share their dynamic progressive and status quo-changing work encompassing various hospital-based projects during a dynamic panel discussion.  

Objectives:

1. Participants will review culturally and linguistically appropriate care from a broad multi-disciplinary and multi-layered holistic and institutional approach.
2. Participants will recognize the essential value of integrating the medical interpreter into professional development programming, policy development, quality improvement, education, clinical teams and clinical research studies.
3. Participants will be able to identify various areas of institutional inclusive program planning from multiple professional points of view.
4. Participants will analyze their view of the role of the medical interpreter in health care institutions.

Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed (TO) is a powerful, interactive theater methodology designed to promote social change by transforming spectators into active participants (“spect-actors”). Applying “TO” medical interpretation encounters is a creative way to train interpreters, improve empathy, and explore power dynamics in clinical settings. Participants will be led through a series of vocal and breath control exercises to strengthen clarity and self-regulation. As a group, we will explore scenarios based on real life encounters where we have been challenged in some way. Examples of these encounters may include communication challenges, cultural misunderstandings, or power imbalances (e.g., patient feels disempowered, doctor/family member wants to overpower conversation, interpreter struggles with neutrality).

Using Augusto Boal’s TO – Forum Theater or “tag out” method, we will roleplay some of these encounters allowing participants to experiment with different strategies, step into each other’s shoes, and collaboratively problem-solve. Using TO to practice medical interpretation can illuminate power imbalances and ethical dilemmas, provide a safe space to rehearse responses, foster empathy by embodying multiple perspectives, encourage creative problem-solving in complex encounters, and develop skills in negotiation, clarification, and advocacy.

The session concludes with a recap of the practical grounding and centering techniques interpreters can apply immediately in their daily work followed by a talk back to summarize the experiences, clarify concepts, and/or offer feedback.

Objectives:

1. Explore strategies for managing difficult encounters through roleplay and group problem-solving.
2. Learn from peers’ shared experiences in a supportive, hands-on environment.
3. Strengthen professional boundaries and presence under pressure.
4. Practice vocal and breath techniques to support emotional regulation during interpreting.

Join us to hear about the revision process for the National Code of Ethics for Interpreters in Health Care. Interpreters shared how they implemented the National Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice and commented on the applicability of various standards. They reflected on their experiences, their understanding of their responsibilities, and the growth of remote interpreting. Hear about the new concepts and perspectives introduced to the Code after analyzing the national data. Discuss and analyze real scenarios with colleagues using an outcome-based approach.  

Objectives:

1. Recognize the connections between the values, principles and standards of our profession.
2. Describe what makes healthcare interpreting a practice profession.
3. Grasp how an outcome-based approach allows professionals to make useful ethical decisions.
4. Practice applying an outcome-based approach to case scenarios.

In the age of AI adoption and integration, this workshop examines how the role and visibility of a healthcare interpreter are shifting. According to recent industry reports (GALA, 2025; Slator, 2025), although AI use in the practice of interpreting is increasing, qualified human interpreters remain central to the standard of quality care in bilingual healthcare communication. As healthcare systems explore the possibilities and limitations of AI tools, the workshop foregrounds the implications of the “(in)visible” interpreter present-day (Giustini, 2024). 

Positioned within a sociological framework, the session not only addresses tool performance but also role dynamics, agency, inequality, and professional identity in workplaces that are increasing digitalization through platforms, remote work, and algorithmic systems (Monzó-Nebot & Dastyar, 2025). Moreover, within this framework, the multiple roles interpreters routinely undertake such as mediator, patient advocate, institutional navigator, healthcare ambassador and conversation partner will be examined while highlighting empirical evidence that much interpreter work occurs outside the consultation room, in the broader ecology of healthcare provision (Álvaro Aranda, 2021). 

Furthermore, the workshop will trace the evolution of “invisibility” in interpreting and translation studies (Angelelli, 2001) and consider how the current technological turn calls for critical reflection, ethical governance, and sociological awareness. The aim is to map current curricular and institutional pathways, identify gaps in policy and assessment, and propose actionable routes for research, program design, and interprofessional collaboration between interpreters, administrators, and clinicians.  

Objectives:

1. Examine the evolving role and visibility of healthcare interpreters.  
2. Discuss the advantages and limitations of AI tools in healthcare interpreting.  
3. Explore Strategies for interprofessional collaboration between interpreters, administrators, and clinicians. 
4. Reflect on interpreter agency, equity, and professional recognition within increasing digital environments. 

This presentation will identify commonly misunderstood medical concepts and terms. The session will incorporate clear explanations and validated medical evidence to dispel myths and clarify terms that may cause confusion for both patients and interpreters. Active participation by those in attendance will be encouraged in identifying real life encounters where confusion or inaccurate beliefs impacted interpretation and, potentially, patient outcomes. The session will conclude with an opportunity to identify strategies for addressing these communication conundrums in real time.  

Objectives:

1. At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will identify common medical terms that are frequently misunderstood.
2. Accurately define commonly confused medical terms.
3. Correct common misconceptions regarding causes of medical ailments, prevention of disease, and treatments.
4. Create a plan for addressing patient-interpreter-clinician miscommunication in a medical encounter.

Have you ever joined a call with your best smile, ready to help those who need you as interpreter, only to find out you are about to interpret for a person who just went through a devastating miscarriage? Have you ever entered a hospital room with eight people who want to talk at the same time because they all want to voice their opinion about what the patient who has been recently diagnosed with cancer should do for treatment? This interactive, skill building session with multi-specialty healthcare examples that apply to onsite and remote interpreters will lead participants into how to determine, understand or be sensitive to the mood or situation happening in an interpreted session. In addition, we will guide participants through how to address the corresponding situations using problem solving and assertiveness skills as well as certain protocols in interpreting. Participants will practice with live examples and audio exercises to effectively apply those skills and protocols in interpreting.

Objectives:

1. To practice ways to determine early in the interpreted session what is happening in “the room”.
2. To practice sensitivity when “reading the room” throughout the interpreted session.
3. To practice how to address some situations, after “reading the room,” by applying common protocols to different live interpreting scenarios.
4. To practice how to address some situations, after “reading the room,” by applying common skills to different live interpreting scenarios.

In an era where interpreters are navigating increasingly complex medical encounters, whether in-person, remote, or hybrid, technical skill alone is not enough. True excellence begins with self-awareness. This session invites interpreters to explore how understanding their unique strengths can transform the quality of their interpreting sessions and enhance patient-provider communication.

Participants will learn how to identify their professional and interpersonal strengths using a simple reflective framework that integrates mindset, communication style, and professional boundaries. Through real-life scenarios and interactive activities, we will explore how self-awareness improves neutrality, supports emotional regulation, and strengthens trust. Three critical components of the “human connection” essential to medical interpreting.

This workshop also addresses how interpreters can apply their strengths to lead “up, down, and across”—positively influencing the interpreting dynamic with providers, clients, and colleagues. Whether serving in person or through a screen, participants will leave with practical tools to build confidence, foster collaboration, and show up as the best version of themselves in every encounter.

Objectives:

1. Identify their top three professional strengths and describe how these impact their interpreting performance.
2. Apply self-awareness strategies to enhance communication and manage stress during medical encounters.
3. Recognize how strengths-based leadership principles can be used to improve team and provider interactions across modalities.
4. Cultivate habits that promote interpreter wellness and relational trust with patients and providers.

Equitable access to organ donation and transplantation continues to be shaped by cultural beliefs, linguistic and societal barriers, and community trust. Medical interpreters and culturally responsive communication professionals play a critical role in closing these gaps, yet their impact is often underrecognized in donation, transplant and hospital systems. This presentation will examine how diverse linguistic outreach, culturally tailored education, and interpreter supported communication can strengthen relationships with multicultural communities and improve understanding of their impact in the donation process. Drawing on real world program insights, data trends, and community-based strategies, the session will highlight practical approaches for increasing engagement, dispelling myths, and supporting informed decision-making across languages and cultures. Participants will gain actionable tools to enhance cross-cultural communication, foster equity, and help ensure that all patients, regardless of language or cultural backgrounds have meaningful access to donation and transplantation opportunities. The study aims to analyze this phenomenon to raise awareness to the relevance of culturally appropriate healthcare access for a diverse patient’s community.

Objectives:

1. Identify key cultural and linguistic barriers that affect equitable access to organ donation and transplantation within diverse communities.
2. Explain the critical role medical interpreters play in facilitating informed decision-making and building trust in donation and transplant conversations.
3. Apply culturally responsive communication strategies and multilingual outreach approaches to improve engagement and understanding in underserved populations.
4. Develop practical action steps to strengthen language-access practices within donation and transplantation programs to reduce disparities and enhance patient outcomes.

Medical interpreters can experience high levels of distress in their daily work and are at high risk for vicarious trauma. (1) Medical interpreters identify the emotional burden of their work as being underrecognized and under-supported by clinical teams and healthcare systems, and have advocated for a space to debrief emotionally charged encounters and learn coping skills to enhance resilience.(2) Palliative care clinicians are well-positioned to respond to and address the emotional burden of interpreters given our communication expertise, shared clinical experiences, and interdisciplinary approach. A partnership between palliative care and interpreter services can help to address this gap in support, ensuring interpreters receive the emotional and coping resources they need to continue their essential work.

In collaboration with Language Services Leadership at Boston Children’s Hospital, we conducted a needs assessment survey of medical interpreters and developed and piloted a bi-monthly structured debriefing program for interpreters. The aims of this program were to: 1) provide a safe space for processing emotions related to challenging encounters, 2) foster connectedness through storytelling, and 3) share concrete coping skills. Preliminary qualitative feedback indicates that interpreters find the sessions helpful for emotional processing and effective in increasing their sense of connectedness.

This presentation will describe the: 1) sources of emotional distress experienced by medical interpreters in their daily work 2) process of development of the debriefing program based on both existing literature and a needs assessment survey of interpreters, 3) tangible tools for participants interested in developing similar programs at their institutions, and 4) lessons learned from 24 months of debriefing sessions.

Supporting the wellbeing of medical interpreters is essential to providing high-quality, culturally responsive clinical care. Ensuring language accessibility and high-quality communication for patients and families who speak languages other than English depends on the resilience and sustainability of the interpreters who make these connections possible.

References:

• Lai M, Heydon G, Mulayim S. Vicarious trauma among interpreters. Int J Interpret Educ. 2015; 7:3-22.
• Lim PS, Olen A, Carballido JK, et al. “We need a little help”: a qualitative study on distress and coping among pediatric medical interpreters. Journal of Hospital Management and Health Policy. 2022;6(0).

Objectives:

1. Participants will recognize sources of emotional distress in medical interpreting.
2. With enhanced understanding of the sources of distress in medical interpreting, participants will be able to list concrete strategies to augment support and address the emotional burden of interpreters.
3. Participants will define a step-by-step approach for designing and implementing a clinician-facilitated debriefing program within an interpreter services team.

Participants will draw on lessons, themes, and successes from two years of facilitated debriefing sessions to inform best practices at their own institutions.  

Your language skills are what people hear, but your cognitive skills are what you find when you pull back the curtain. While you listen, remember, process, decide, and self-correct (at lightning speed!) as you interpret, your brain is doing the real heavy lifting. These mental superpowers are what separate good interpreting from great interpreting.

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI) has spent more than a decade studying interpreter performance. In 2023, CCHI took this work to a new level by asking a different question: how do interpreters think while they do it? This led to a groundbreaking study, which identified the mental skills that support competent interpreting across all languages and led to the development of the first-ever monolingual performance exam for interpreters of all languages.

Come experience it yourself! Join us for interactive cognitive exercises that give your linguistic skills a rest while strengthening your interpreting mind.

Objectives:

1. Describe what cognitive skills are and how they support interpreting.
2. Differentiate cognitive skills from language or interpreting techniques.
3. Practice cognitive skills via interactive exercises.
4. Identify how strengthening specific cognitive skills can improve overall interpreting performance across diverse scenarios.

In an era when language access needs are rapidly expanding, innovative models are essential to strengthening the interpreter workforce, especially in rural and geographically isolated communities. This session highlights the Communication Ambassador Partnership (CAP) of Martha’s Vineyard, a pioneering school-based interpreter training program that prepares bilingual high school juniors and seniors to become community interpreters. This model is an example of culturally and linguistically appropriate care tailored to our community, particularly since many student interpreters share lived experiences and challenges with the multilingual immigrant families they serve.

Operating during the school day through lunch blocks and elective periods, CAP trains 8–12 students annually, providing foundational skills, ethical grounding, and supervised practice opportunities that bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world service. Upon program completion, students have the opportunity to engage in school-based interpreting at events and meetings, while also accessing mentorship from a network of seasoned interpreters and peers.

Now in its fourth year, this program has become a promising workforce-development pipeline designed specifically for a multicultural island community. After graduation and upon turning 18, participants receive a certificate recognizing their completed training—many then transition directly into roles as education support professionals, medical office staff, and other health and human services positions across the island.

This workshop will explore CAP’s evolving model, partnerships with community organizations, and emerging continuing-education pathways such as a cohort with the local community college for students pursuing further interpreter training. Participants will also learn about CAP’s virtual local career fair, employment skill building opportunities, and benefits of peer and school support.

Aligned with the conference theme, Human Connections: Interpreting in an Evolving Landscape, this presentation demonstrates how early, intentional preparation of youth can expand access, strengthen community relationships, and cultivate a home-grown interpreter workforce responsive to the cultural and linguistic realities of a unique island community.

Objectives:

1. Describe the core components of the Communication Ambassador Partnership (CAP) model, including school-day training, ethical foundations, and supervised practice for high school interpreters.
2. Identify strategies for developing interpreter pipelines that strengthen community language-access capacity, particularly in rural or geographically isolated settings.
3. Explore partnership models and continuing-education pathways, including mentorship networks, collaborations with community organizations, and community college credit opportunities.
4. Recognize the workforce-development impact of early interpreter preparation, including how CAP supports culturally and linguistically appropriate care and transitions students into real-world roles.

Children of immigrant families are more likely to experience hardships and trauma that lead to even higher rates of mental health issues than those already seen in adolescents today. Often, multilingual families also face greater barriers to therapeutic services. Interpreters have the ability to help bridge this gap in care, but interpreting in mental health settings comes with unique challenges. This presentation will introduce Spanish interpreters to the unique needs of families and mental health providers engaging in counseling or talk therapy. With a discussion on the growing need for this support, a look at how these encounters differ from the more familiar physical health appointments, and a comprehensive review of relevant terminology, interpreters will leave this presentation with the clarity needed to approach their next adolescent therapy appointment with confidence.

Objectives:

1. Describe how the growing need for adolescent mental health services implies a greater need for interpreters in these settings.
2. Explain the ways in which the encounter may look similar to or different from a physical health visit and what this means for the interpreter.
3. Review the most common mental health diagnoses in the adolescent population.
4. Apply mental health terminology encountered in adolescent and family therapy settings.