Ethics in medical interpreting

Medical interpreting is not just having the information being conveyed from the source language to the target language to have a proven knowledge in interpreting both the message together with gestures, body language and etc. As far as ethics is concerned in every medical interpreting profession, medical interpreters are bound by certain sets of ethics at work. Different interpreters groups provide different sets of ethics codes for interpreters to follow and they are similar

What are ethics?

Before we go further, allow me define what ethics means;

Generally, the word ethics refers to a set of principles and values that govern workers in the workplace. It clearly provides guidelines for making judgements about what is good and bad and what could be the recommended behaviour.

In every workplace, ethics is based in three core values that both service providers and the interpreters must adhere to for the goodness of their clients and the reputation of the business,

So, we are looking at the ethics in the medical field, the three core values are guidelines to both medical doctors or medical service providers, medical interpreters and the patients,

Below are the three core values;

Beneficence; in medical interpreting, the life or health of the patient and well-being is the goal of interpreting. This goal is shared by both the medical team, interpreters and the patients as well. An accurate medical interpretation saves the life of the patient since it makes the communication easy for the doctor and the patient.

Fidelity; here, it’s the responsibility of an interpreter to ensure that s/he remains loyal and faithful to provide clear and accurate medical interpretation services. Whatever message that is mentioned by either a patient or a medical practitioner must be interpreted into the target language without adding or omitting some words. Any distortion made by an interpreter can lead to problems for a patient’s life, hence medical interpreters must be good listeners in order to capture the message well before interpreting it to the target language.

Respect for the importance of cultures and cultural differences; it’s important for the interpreter to be knowledgeable about the culture of the source and target language because at time cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication. Also, some words in have different meanings in different cultures

Codes of ethics for medical interpreters

When delivering medical interpreting services, interpreters have to abide by  professional code of conducts that are discussed below;

Confidentiality is one of the most important ethical codes of conduct for every profession, as a professional medical interpreter, you have to treat and keep all the information during the encounter with the treating team and the patient to yourself. They are supposed to keep and maintain secrecy of whatever they've seen, heard and interpreted.

Accuracy and completeness; as mentioned earlier, medical interpreters need to deliver complete interpreting services for their clients, they should make it possible that they deliver what the client expects of them to the patient. It's not only conveying the real meaning of the message to the patient, but also the motions, tone and gestures that the message comes with, without adding any single information or omitting part of information delivered in the source language. If any information is added or omitted, then the real meaning of the speaker’s message is distorted. 

Professional boundaries; developing professional rapport is encouraged between the interpreter and the patient is allowed and encouraged, but this does not allow the interpreter to have personal involvement with clients and build friendship with them, they should also avoid taking on other roles that they are not supposed to do in order to avoid potential conflicts of interests. For example, if an interpreter is a doctor, he or she should not go ahead to give a patient medical recommendations but should only stick his or her profession.

Professionalism; medical interpreters in medical health care units must act professionally; this includes and not limited to

•       Preparing for all assignments and arriving on time
•      Not in any way exploit the defenselessness of the patient,      for instance, shouldn't receive gifts or cash from the     patient
•      Disclosing skill limitations
•            Etc

    It's advisable, therefore, medical interpreters to always abide by their professional code of conduct so as deliver a professional medical interpretation that will benefit the clients with his or her patients. Also you as a medical services provider, should ensure to hire medical interpreters from recognized medical translation agencies