Culturesmart(TM) Breaks Language Barriers With Trained Medical In...( 'Train-the-Trainer' summer progra...),Health

'Train-the-Trainer' summer program offers comprehensive interpreter

training course

QUINCY, Mass., May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Every day, language barriers prevent professionals who work in healthcare from communicating accurately and effectively with patients of limited English proficiency. In fact, the guesswork associated with navigating around communication roadblocks often becomes a very risky practice. Mistakes can be not only a costly liability to the healthcare industry but also life-threatening for patients. Given this, professional medical interpreters, and even those assisting in clinical situations by serving as ad-hoc interpreters, take on a very serious role for which they are generally unequipped and ill-prepared to perform.

Aiming to end the risky guesswork is Culturesmart(TM), Inc. (http://www.culturesmart.org/), which specializes in medical interpreter training. This summer, Culturesmart(TM) will offer an intensive train-the- trainer course that will teach attendees how to implement "The Essential Piece" - Culturesmart's(TM) proven, in-house 45-hour interpreter training program for bilingual healthcare staff. Taking place Aug. 18-22, 2008, this cost-effective, "Train-the-Trainer" (TTT) (http://ttt.culturesmart.org) program will draw medical trainers, interpreter trainers, interpreter agencies and other organizations.

"'The Essential Piece' course covers a range of ethical and cultural aspects relating to healthcare interpreting, including completeness and accuracy of information translated, confidentiality, the United States healthcare system and health disparities," says Gregory Figaro, Culturesmart's(TM) president and founder. "In addition, the language coaching portion of this curriculum, conducted primarily in a language other than English, reviews difficult medical vocabulary and
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