Healthcare professionals during a session as part of the ‘Bridging the Gap’ programme to overcome language barriers.
The ‘Bridging the Gap’, a medical interpreters training programme by Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, is helping patients and health professionals in the country to overcome language barriers.
WCM-Q has developed the pioneering programme in order to seal any gaps in communication that affect interaction between healthcare professionals and patients in Qatar’s multilingual community.
‘Bridging the Gap’ was launched by WCM-Q’s Center for Cultural Competence in Healthcare (CCCHC), part of the university’s Institute for Population Health in 2012. Since then, it has trained over 288 medical interpreters who collectively speak 22 languages. It is complementing the efforts of healthcare organisations within Qatar which have set up medical interpretation programmes to provide language services to their patients. “The medical interpretation training provided through ‘Bridging the Gap’ is designed to train bilingual and multilingual healthcare professionals to understand the linguistic and cultural barriers that exist within healthcare services,” said Maha Elnashar, Director of CCCHC.
“Bridging the Gap’ aims is to build medical interpretation capacity in Qatar that supports effective communication within healthcare services,” she added.
Bridging the Gap’s alumni are professionals from various backgrounds, both medical and non-medical including physicians, pharmacists, dentists, nurses, technicians, allied health professionals from across healthcare organisations in the country. As the programme continues to enable both healthcare trainees and professionals to discover and learn about medical terminology in different languages, develop their cross-cultural dialogue skills, and reduce language barriers, minds have turned to how it can be enhanced.
“It’s important for trained interpreters to put what they have learned into practice, and acquire real-world knowledge in the healthcare field,” said Elnashar. “We hope to receive the support of healthcare organisations in Qatar to provide the interpreters trained through Bridging the Gap with opportunities for practical experience.”
“The establishment of a volunteering programme within healthcare organisations in Qatar would allow medical interpreters to maintain and further develop their skills. We are looking to work with interested parties to make this happen, as we believe it will help Qatar achieve its vision of a holistic, world-class, and completely accessible healthcare system,” said Elnashar. She believes that the value of Bridging the Gap can be felt in easing medical communication between Qatar’s health professionals and the community. Interpretation in healthcare is not simply a case of explaining the meaning of another language’s words. Developing and refining cross-cultural language skills in a healthcare context requires a more nuanced approach and specialised training.
“As a pediatrician, I became aware of the medical terms required in this field, and it showed me the importance of being able to communicate with patients and families about their medical conditions,” said Alaa Suliman, one of the graduates of the programme, physician and a researcher. “However, there is more to effective medical interpretation than simply speaking the language and knowing the necessary terms. You have to, for example, learn the skill of being as neutral as possible of being able to provide impartiality and advocacy,” said Alaa, who is also a member of the Scientific Planning Committee of the Bridging the Gap.
Alaa also believes the programme helps medical professionals to be even better at what they do. “Bridging The Gap exceeded my expectations,” she said, “because it added many elements to my skills as a healthcare practitioner, whether I am acting as an medical interpreter or a pediatrician. It not only showed me the role of a medical interpreter, but also the responsibilities that come with it.
