Arbor Interpreting Services
Interpreter Services at Arbor Free Clinic are dedicated to serving the increasingly large and diverse proportion of Spanish speaking patients. Interpreters work at the front-lines of patient care. Each Sunday, interpreters participate in patient intake, taking patient medical histories and translating accounts of illness to the doctors. At Arbor, volunteers learn that healing concerns more than dissecting disease; it involves forging a relationship with a person, establishing trust, and interpreting the illness.
The Interpreting program ensures a high quality experience for patients and volunteers through volunteer application, language screening and language/cross cultural education. Each fall quarter, prospective interpreters are invited to apply, and are accepted until our interpreter team of 30 is assembled. Recognizing that Spanish fluency is an important component of effective communication, successful application includes an oral fluency screening. Recent work at Arbor also highlighted the need to train interpreters to be sensitive to cross-cultural concerns. In response, Arbor interpreting program encourages its volunteers to continue learning about cross cultural issues through a biweekly medical vocabulary list.
Currently we are only accepting applications from current Stanford students. After being accepted into the regular interpreter pool, volunteers are required to interpret a minimum of 2 times per quarter. To guarantee that students get opportunities to volunteer, interpreters are considered as a separate pool from regular volunteers. Interpreters are asked to sign up for the interpreter slots only. For more information, please contact us at arborclinic@stanford.edu.
