Motivations of undergraduate student medical interpreters: Exposure and experience.

BACKGROUND: When patients do not speak the same language as their doctors, they face poorer medical outcomes, decreased doctor-patient trust, and a diminished desire to seek medical care. It has been well established that interpretation is an essential part of an accessible healthcare system, but effective use of such language services relies on both the interpreters themselves and the healthcare teams working with them. This study presents an interdisciplinary examination of the motivations of undergraduate student medical interpreters, a group which serves as a bridge between these roles. While not full-time interpreters, they receive official training and spend time serving patients in local clinics. Further, for those who aspire to careers in medicine, interpreting provides invaluable exposure to the medical field and early professional know-how. METHODS: Semi-structured individual interviews with undergraduate student interpreters were conducted to describe this multifaceted educational experience. A thematic analysis framework was employed to understand how and why they volunteer their time to interpret. RESULTS: Motivations of student interpreters were found to fall under three general categories: (1) personal identity, or connection to family, language, and their career aspirations; (2) community engagement, or the opportunity to make a direct impact on patients at an early stage; and (3) pre-professional experience, both in general and specifically in healthcare. Each of these contributes to the view of a student medical interpreter as a unique contributor to language equity in medicine, as they provide language services in the short-term as well as set themselves up to be linguistically and culturally competent providers in the long-term. CONCLUSIONS: A greater understanding of student motivations adds to knowledge about language mediation and validates the utility of students in this role, encouraging the development of more student interpreter programs. Particularly in communities with high proportions of non-English speakers, these students can contribute to making medical care as inclusive and accessible as possible.

What People Tweet about Imaging Costs.

BACKGROUND: Patients may experience adverse health outcomes when they are unable to manage medical bills. It is currently unknown, however, whether patients talk about cost in the context of medical imaging services they received. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective qualitative analysis of twitter posts related to medical imaging and cost. Tweets were extracted from twitter, inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, and tweets were categorized as either "positive" or "negative"; none were "neutral". A qualitative thematic analysis of all included tweets was performed to develop themes and topics expressed. A single tweet may have been assigned several different codes according to its content. A random sampling of the tweets from each topic were selected by the two reviewers, verified by the remaining reviewers, and quoted (Q). RESULTS: Here, 9.8% (n = 99) of tweets relevant to medical imaging were included in the analysis. The majority had a negative sentiment (91%, n = 90) related to themes of (1) cost of care (47%, n = 42), (2) care delivery (23%, n = 21), (3) insurance Issues (23%, n = 21), and (4) need for information (7%, n = 6). A few positive tweets (9%, n = 9) were related to themes of (1) Gratitude (44%, n = 4), (2) Affordability (33%, n = 3), and (3) Better than expected (22%, n = 2). CONCLUSION: Among tweets related to medical imaging we found that 10% relate to cost and that these are overwhelmingly negative, mostly due to perceived high cost of care, deficient care delivery, and insurance issues.