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.

F5-Atlanta: A novel mutation in F5 associated with enhanced East Texas splicing and FV-short production.

BACKGROUND: Elucidating the molecular pathogenesis underlying East Texas bleeding disorder (ET) led to the discovery of alternatively spliced F5 transcripts harboring large deletions within exon 13. These alternatively spliced transcripts produce a shortened form of coagulation factor V (FV) in which a large portion of its B-domain is deleted. These FV isoforms bind tissue factor pathway inhibitor alpha (TFPIα) with high affinity, prolonging its circulatory half-life and enhancing its anticoagulant effects. While two missense pathogenic variants highlighted this alternative splicing event, similar internally deleted FV proteins are found in healthy controls. OBJECTIVE: We identified a novel heterozygous 832 base pair deletion within F5 exon 13, termed F5-Atlanta (F5-ATL), in a patient with severe bleeding. Our objective is to investigate the effect of this deletion on F5 and FV expression. METHODS & RESULTS: Assessment of patient plasma revealed markedly elevated levels of total and free TFPI and a FV isoform similar in size to the FV-short described in ET. Sequencing analyses of cDNA revealed the presence of a transcript alternatively spliced using the ET splice sites, thereby removing the F5-ATL deletion. This alternative splicing pattern was recapitulated by heterologous expression in mammalian cells. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support a mechanistic model consisting of cis-acting regulatory sequences encoded within F5 exon 13 that control alternative splicing at the ET splice sites and thereby regulate circulating FV-short and TFPIα levels.