Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate of Achievement

Prerequisite: Spanish 4 or placement

The Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate provides culturally responsive healthcare interpreter training to bilingual students who wish to pursue careers as healthcare/medical interpreters and/or bilingual staff in healthcare settings. The program offers the fundamentals of the national and state codes ethics, protocols, terminology, and skill-building practices to execute the three modes of spoken language interpretation successfully: consecutive interpretation, simultaneous interpretation, and sight translation.  It also prepares students for the national interpreting exams which grant either CMI or CHI certification. Graduates may find employment interpreting in hospitals, clinics, or freelancing for remote and onsite interpreting agencies.

The proposed program is completable within 1 year if students enter with the Spanish language requirement completed.

We anticipate that the annual number of students completing the Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate of Achievement  will increase gradually each year. The core courses of the program are new and have not yet been offered. There are no data to gauge concrete annual enrollment and completion projections. 

Completer projections for the 2022-2023 year: 5 students 

		2020	2020	2021	2021
	CB02: Course Title	Annual # Sections	Annual Enrollment Total	Annual # Sections	Annual Enrollment Total
SPAN 181	Fundamentals of Healthcare Interpreting	New Course:NA	0	New Course:NA	0
SPAN 182	Skill-Building Practices for Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting	New Course:NA	0	New Course:NA	0
SPAN 185	Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting Experience Seminar	New Course:NA	0	New Course:NA	0
NURS111	Medical Terminology	6	211	8	268
OT101	Study of Human Diseases for Medical Assistants	0	0	1	13
SPAN004(prerequisite)	Fourth Semester Spanish	1	6	1	15
SPAN003	Third Semester Spanish	2	34	1	36
SPAN002	Second Semester Spanish	4	101	4	112
SPAN001	First Semester Spanish	9	249	6	174

This certificate of achievement provides a foundation of interpreting skills for students seeking to become healthcare interpreters or designated bilingual healthcare staff. It offers the necessary preparation to take a national interpreting certification exam to become a certified Spanish/English healthcare interpreter. The coursework presents Spanish/English interpreting in a cross-cultural context, addressing the national and state ethical standards expected of a professional healthcare interpreter. Students who receive this certificate may seek employment as healthcare and community interpreters, translators, bilingual healthcare staff.

The program goals fall within “Career Technical Education,” given that the main focus is workforce development and training. Whether students are seeking entry-level employment, furthering current career paths, or are pursuing retraining for new career opportunities, the Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate will afford them more specialized linguistic skills training so that they can meet the following occupational competencies for healthcare interpreters:

·      High linguistic proficiency in both the source and target languages

·      Ability to render messages orally effectively and accurately in while maintaining a professional register and tone

·      Proficiency in medical terminology as well as understanding of regionalisms, register, and linguistic nuances

·      Clear understanding and adherence to ethical codes of conduct in the interpreting profession

The Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate also is an excellent cross-disciplinary complement to other courses of study at Solano Community College, including Human Services, Medical Assistant, and Nursing.

As stated in the Program Learning Outcomes, students who complete the program coursework with a passing grade will:

·      Demonstrate a high intermediate/advanced linguistic proficiency in speaking, listening, and reading as applied to the use of the three modes (consecutive and simultaneous interpretation, and sight translation) in healthcare interpreting settings.

·      Apply critical thinking, cultural responsiveness, and linguistic skills to successfully identify and manage potential communication- and ethical-pitfalls in healthcare settings.

·      Locate and articulate the resources that are available to pursue continuing education opportunities in the field, to obtain formal assessments of their specific linguistic proficiency levels, and to pursue national interpreting certifications.

Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training

Course Sequence:

Spanish Language Requirement: SPAN 001-004 or Credit for Prior Learning (0-20 units);Prerequisite: SPAN004.

Up to two additional years may be required to complete SPAN001-004, if student has no prior knowledge of Spanish. Otherwise, core requirements for the Certificate are comprised of 7 courses for a total of 19 units, including 1 unit of a work experience practicum. 

Required Core	Course #	Course Title	Units
	SPAN181	Fundamentals of Healthcare Interpreting	5
	SPAN182	Skill-Building Practices for Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting	3
	SPAN185	Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting Experience Seminar	1
	NUR111	Medical Terminology	3
	OT101	Study of Human Diseases for Medical Assistants	3
	COMM012	Intercultural Communication	3
	OCED090	Occupational Work Experience	1

 

Course	Title	Units	Year/Semester (Y1 or S1)
NURS111	Medical Terminology	3	Y1, Fall (S1)
OT101	Study of Human Diseases for Medical Assistants	3	Y1, Fall (S1)
COMM012	Intercultural Communication	3	Y1, Fall (S1)
SPAN181	Fundamentals of Healthcare Interpreting	5	Y1, Fall (S1)
SPAN182	Skill-Building Practices for Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting	3	Y1, Spring (S2)
SPAN185	Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreting Experience Seminar	1	Y1, Spring (S2)
OCED090	Occupational Work Experience	1	Y1, Spring (S2)

Required Total:    Spanish Language Requirement: 0-20 units+ 19 units=39 units

The proposedSpanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate part of a general effort to address requests from students and community members to provide "more advanced" offerings in Spanish to help hone workforce bilingual skills to further career opportunities. Until recently, the Spanish program at SCC, which began in 1971, has offered an AA and an AA-T degrees in Spanish. The emphasis traditionally has been on providing transfer-level education, and the course offerings, SPAN 001-004 have been targeted to the novice-beginner through intermediate-level students. This proposed Spanish/English Healthcare Interpreter Training Certificate addresses an opportunity to engage more closely with the Latino and Spanish-speaking communities, to offer concrete training for bilingual individuals for job enhancement opportunities in healthcare, and to increase the pool of Spanish/English healthcare interpreters in the county.

Based on the LMI report, there are two (2) community colleges in the Bay Region issuing 13 awards on average annually (last 3 years ending 2018-19) on TOP 2140.00 – Legal and Community Interpretation. In the North Bay Sub-Region, there is one (1) community college that issued eight (8) awards on average annually (last 3 years) on this TOP code. Due to the geographical location of Solano County, there is no risk of competition among these institutions. The Labor Market Information Report also states that there is an undersupply of Interpreters and Translators: In the North Bay Sub-Region, there is a gap with 49 annual openings and 8 annual (3-year average) awards for an annual undersupply of 41 students.