The International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA) has announced it will disseminate the IMIA Code of Ethics globally. This would be the first code of ethics created for medical interpreters, which has now been translated into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Arabic, German, French, Korean, Japanese, Continental Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Russian.

The intention behind the code is to address the large international incidence of medical interpreting and to promote language access for medical services internationally. IMIA President, Izabel Arocha states, "Interpreters who are committed to the code of ethics are able to promote a professional relationship and better collaborate with the patients and providers. It brings about accountability, responsibility and trust to the individuals that the profession serves."

According to Jon Sommers, Senior Vice President, Operations of CyraCom says, "CyraCom is strongly committed to the highest levels of training and professionalism for its medical interpreters and we are therefore delighted to participate in and support initiatives promoting high ethical and other standards." Akira Akaki, Secretary General of JICE, adds, "We have abundant knowledge and human resources through our over thirty-year international cooperation activities. We are very proud of our contribution to the global spread and development of medical interpreters by sharing these experiences."

The IMIA has been dedicated to the advancement of professional medical interpretation and translation as the best practice for equitable language access to medical care for those who are linguistically diverse patients internationally. Founded in 1986, it is the oldest and largest medical interpreter association on the globe with over 1,600 members.

05 January 2009