This 1-hour asynchronous course designed to strengthen interpreters’ ability to navigate complex healthcare encounters with clarity and professionalism. Participants will explore when and how to intervene using a structured approach to strategic mediation, with a focus on addressing linguistic challenges, role confusion, cultural misunderstandings, and healthcare system barriers. Through realistic scenarios, guided discussion, and group activities, interpreters will apply an ethical decision-making framework to evaluate options, anticipate consequences, and choose actions that support patient care while preserving communicative autonomy. The training emphasizes concise, effective interventions that reinforce the interpreter’s role and promote safe, accurate, and equitable communication in healthcare settings.

Medical interpreting is a practice profession that requires ethical decision-making skills to mediate effectively during healthcare encounters.

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

•Identify situations that require mediation in medical interpreting encounters
•Differentiate between interpreting and strategic mediation
•Apply a structured ethical decision-making model to real-world scenarios
•Analyze potential consequences of different courses of action in an encounter
•Demonstrate concise and professional mediation techniques
•Address common challenges including linguistic barriers, role confusion, cultural misunderstandings, and healthcare system barriers
•Support communicative autonomy while promoting patient safety and access to care

• Common ethical frameworks for interpreters: CHIA, NCIHC, IMIA, RID
• Foundational three core values for healthcare interpreting
• Dean and Pollard’s Steps to Ethical Decision-Making
• How to weigh consequences of actions with conflicting ethical principles
• Applying ethical decision-making in clinical encounters