Interpreting Programs at RIC Reduce Health Gaps by Closing Language Gaps

Language gaps and a lack of cultural competence can be challenging in any situation, but in healthcare settings such miscommunication can have major consequences. Rhode Island College created two new interpreting programs to help bridge these gaps, developed by women who have had similar life experiences when dealing with interpreting for their families or communities. Using American Sign Language and Portuguese, these women are working to train more healthcare interpreters and to build a more culturally and contextually competent workforce to serve the many speakers of other languages throughout Rhode Island.  

Christine West is program specialist for the Public Health and Equity Sign Language Interpreting Program (PHESLIP) at RIC, a grant-funded program initiated by Marie Lynch, a RIC professor of special education. 

Lynch is a child of deaf adults (often known by the acronym “coda”) and grew up culturally deaf. In 2019 she was approached by Earnest Covington III, executive director of the Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing to create PHESLIP at RIC. The aim is to address the workforce need for sign language interpreters in healthcare settings.

“For nine months, I worked closely with six sign language interpreters, including Christine West, to establish the program’s mission, develop program outcomes and design the program format,” Lynch explains. 

Offered through RIC’s Division of Professional Studies & Continuing Education, PHESLIP is designed for trained interpreters who want to specialize in medical, mental health and behavioral health settings.

West has been a sign language interpreter since the 90s and was brokering language before she knew it. At a young age she was helping her non-native English-speaking mother understand documents, school notices and health instructions in the English language. 

“The Public Health and Equity Sign Language Interpreting Program was born out of the community to serve the community,” she says.

PHESLIP is the state’s first sign language interpreting program and the first in the nation to focus on public health, diversity, social justice and equity. By increasing the number of trained healthcare interpreters, the aim is to reduce healthcare disparities among deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Rhode Island and beyond.  

A similar program exists at RIC for the third most commonly spoken language (after English and Spanish) in Rhode Island – Portuguese.   

Lisa Morris has been director of cross-cultural initiatives for Commonwealth Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School for 20-plus years. At RIC, she was hired to be the primary faculty adjunct instructor for the Portuguese-English Medical Interpreting Training Program.

“Offered through RIC’s Division of Professional Studies & Continuing Education and co-funded by the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies at RIC, this program is designed for nursing students who demonstrate bilingual proficiency in Portuguese and English and for any community member to develop their medical vocabulary to communicate with patients directly,” says Morris.

Morris was approached by Associate Professor Silvia Oliveira, director of the Portuguese Studies Program and the Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies, to work on this new program. Oliveira emphasized the importance of students not only learning about medical conditions, treatments and procedures in Portuguese, but learning to recognize various linguistic registers and being able to address patients in understandable linguistics. 

Students in both of these interpreting programs earn a Certificate of Undergraduate Studies upon completion and become certified healthcare interpreters.

Together, these programs are addressing a critical need for patients who are often left to rely on untrained staff or family members to provide informal interpretation. (The Division of Professional Studies & Continuing Education is also working on developing a Spanish-English interpreting program.)