The aim of this paper is to present some preliminary findings of ongoing research within the project “interpreting in Hospitals”, at the Research Centre on Multilingualism in Hamburg. Within the project a comparison is made between monolingual and multilingual interactions to investigate the differences between interpreted and non-interpreted doctor-patient communication. The languages under study are German, Turkish and Portuguese. The paper draws attention to two features of interpreted doctor-patient communication which appear frequently in the data, and may therefore be considered ‘salient’. First, the communicative function of modal verbs in briefings for informed consent is discussed. Then, the author looks at switches between monolingual and multilingual modes of interaction. It is argued that an analysis of these features within the framework of Discourse Analysis and Functional Pragmatics may offer insight into the communicative demands of these specific institutional settings and may also contribute to the discussion concerning professional community interpreting.