A hospital stay can be made even more traumatic if one does not speak the language and cannot communicate with the hospital staff. This is especially true if one has a child that is critically ill or injured.

This can be just as aggravating for hospital staff that need to communicate with a patient and their family and cannot due to a language barrier. To bridge this communication gap, Phoenix's Children's Hospital and Rio Salado College have teamed up to develop an interpretation and translation program in various languages.

The hospital has now created the Spanish Medical Interpretation curriculum for bilingual speakers familiar with the medical field. There will also be an online interactive format to expand the accessibility of the program.

21 October 2008