A SWITS interpreter continues her education

 

By Ousia Whitaker-DeVault

I recently met with one of our Spanish staff interpreters, Vicki Bermúdez, at a small cafe in South Milwaukee. She told me about her life, career as an interpreter, and recent accomplishment of furthering her medical certification. Vicki has just passed the second portion of the CHI credential, developed by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI), which I will elaborate on below.

Vicki’s path to interpreting was not direct; she is sixty years old this year and didn’t begin interpreting until 2003. As a young woman, she lived in Argentina and Spain, but until starting to interpret, she had never used her bilingualism as part of a job.

“For some reason that I’ve never been able to figure out, I received a letter in the mail one day to go to an orientation to become an interpreter. I don’t know where anybody got my name from, but I thought that it sounded really interesting.” After the mysterious letter arrived, Vicki decided to make use of her gift of Spanish, and started training. In 2007, she participated in an Equal Footing training with Saul, and subsequently began working with SWITS.

Since then, Vicki has achieved several certifications, and works in both legal and medical settings. She aims to be as professional as possible, and finds personal satisfaction in continuing her education. “I think that with the legal certification now, as of this year, they are requiring interpreters to have continuing education, which is how it should have been all along. I fully agree with it.”

CCHI aims to benefit everybody involved in healthcare interpreting, including patients, interpreters themselves, healthcare providers, and language service providers. Their evaluation process includes a written portion, followed by an oral examination, and helps to guarantee quality and consistency across healthcare systems and providers. CCHI also works to accredit continuing education programs for healthcare interpreters, and works on behalf of many stakeholders to support interpreter training.

After taking the exam, Vicki believes it to be an accurate measure of the skills necessary to interpret in the medical field. “I thought it was a very fair test […] it was really what you would expect.”

As advice for those in pursuit of certification, which SWITS highly encourages, Vicki emphasized the importance of diligent study and shadowing, and recommends the use of tools such as training books and CDs designed for interpreters. Some such materials are available to borrow from SWITS.

Congratulations, Vicki!