RESEARCH & ACTION AND TRAINING IN MEDICAL INTERPRETING - ReACTMe

01/09/2019 – 31/08/2022

The Universidad San Jorge (Spain) is the leading HEI (Higher Education Institution) of the ReACTMe project, aimed at promoting Medical Interpreting Training.

Medical interpreting as a profession varies greatly within the EU, and the relevant needs are constantly changing, as migration patterns into EU member states are affected by social, economic and political events. All EU countries are therefore coping with rapidly changing environments and need to develop interpreting services meeting the current citizens’ needs. To attain said purpose, focusing on training is essential.

HEIs are called upon to provide innovative and specialized Medical Interpreting training to help overcome the communication barriers that patients who don’t speak the official language of the country encounter when having access to health care services. By professionalizing medical interpreting universities can give their contribution to guaranteeing equality and social inclusion in health care services.

The lack of higher education training in medical interpreting is probably one of the reasons why non specialized interpreters are often relied upon in case of foreign-language speaking patients in Italian, Romanian and Spanish healthcare services. This is very likely to have a negative impact on communication and clinical outcomes.

The project will have a 3-year duration, and at the end of the 3^rd year partners aim at accomplishing the following tasks:

• A comparative analysis of the current needs of medical interpreting in the three countries concerned;
• A digital learning platform and a set of guidelines and training resources for medical interpreting;
• Multilingual guidelines for healthcare providers working with interpreters;
• Training 20 trainers with varied linguistic profiles, who will be able to train medical interpreters in their countries (12 from Romania);
• Medical interpreting training to 36 students from Faculties of translation interpreting or foreign languages;
• A joint blended learning curriculum on medical interpreting to be implemented after the funding period;
• The publication of a book focused on the major conclusions drawn from this transnational experience.

The research team is a multidisciplinary team of lecturers and researchers from 6 European universities. Coordinator: Universidad San Jorge (Spain)

Partners:

• Universidad San Jorge (Spain): Dr. Almudena Nevado Llopis
• Universidad de Murcia (Spain): Dr. Ana Isabel Foulquié Rubio
• Università degli Studi di Bologna (Italy): Dr. Christopher John Garwood
• Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma - UNINT (Italy): Elena Tomassini
• Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai (Romania): Dr. Alina Pelea
• Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie Iuliu Hațieganu (Romania): Dr. Alina Andreica

The Unint research team includes:

Elena Tomassini, Donatella Cifola and Francesca Gnani

Website: www.reactme.net