Exploring role expectations of healthcare interpreters in New Zealand

Ineke Crezee | Auckland University of Technology

Shirley Jülich | Massey University

Reports from practising healthcare interpreters in New Zealand suggest that they and the health professionals they work with often have conflicting understandings of the healthcare interpreter role. This chapter reports on the findings of a series of surveys among health professionals and healthcare interpreters in New Zealand designed to investigate these differences. Separate surveys were posted for health professionals and healthcare interpreters respectively and answers as to role expectations were compared. The survey findings showed that health professionals’ role expectations conflicted with the code of ethics followed by New Zealand trained interpreters in some key areas. It is hoped that these findings may provide insights which can be addressed in interpreter education or in professional development sessions for health professionals working with interpreters.

Keywords: healthcare interpreter role, health interpreting, healthcare interpreter role expectation, interpreter code of ethics, interpreter education, New Zealand healthcare system, interpreter visibility, accuracy, confidentiality, interpreter competence

Published online: 03 June 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.151.09cre

Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Enríquez Raído, Vanessa, Ineke Crezee & Quintin Ridgeway

2020. Professional, ethical, and policy dimensions of public service interpreting and translation in New Zealand. Translation and Interpreting Studies 15:1 ► pp. 15 ff.

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