ECU Health’s American Sign Language Residency Program helps meet a critical need while developing the next generation of interpreters

As an academic health system, ECU Health serves as a rural care organization and training center for health care providers and support service team members.

Although resident physicians and nurses come to mind as the most obvious occupations that combine the medical and academic environment, a new resident track helps fill an important need for patients in the North East. Carolina deaf or hard of hearing: ECU Health American Sign. Language (ASL) Residential Program.

Established in April, the ASL Interpreter Residency program was born out of a need for clinical ASL interpreters. The program is designed to help increase the number of ASL interpreters available to patients throughout the ECU Health system, hospitals and clinics, as well as train the next generation of interpreters for the medical profession.

More than 500,000 people across the United States use ASL to communicate as their native language, making ASL the third most spoken language in the United States, after English and Spanish, according to the Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

“There is a great need for ASL interpreters in health care both nationally and locally,” said ECU Health ASL coordinator Reid Barnes, who created the program. “When we looked at this need in the context of our academic health department, it made sense to create a model similar to that of the physician experience.”

Residents in the program join a two-year commitment where they focus on skill development and clinical interpretation during their first year, with close supervision in clinical settings. The second year of the program includes hospital and clinical work while assisting with continuing education efforts.

Barnes, ECU Health’s only full-time ASL interpreter, works with 6 or 7 patients on any given day, often spread across the health system’s 29-county service area, so the need is clear. However, what is less obvious is how to become a good ASL medical interpreter.

A licensed or certified ASL interpreter does not receive a special medical certificate. ASL interpreters undergo rigorous testing to ensure they have general competence for a wide range of interpreting situations. However, the decision to choose in any case is left to the individual translator. Specializations often include a broad combination of targeted training and individual experience. As a result, it is often difficult for new translators to gain experience on their own.

All of these factors, Barnes said, inspired the creation of the ECU Health ASL Interpreter Residency program.

“Health care should always be delivered in the patient’s native language,” Barnes said. Imagine what your healthcare experience would be like if you couldn’t communicate with doctors and nurses in your native language? For deaf and hard of hearing people, that is a reality. We can now expand our services, improve patient experiences and become a virtual training ground for skilled ASL medical interpreters. “

Jordan Satchell is the first resident in the ECU Health ASL Interpreter Residency program. Having worked as an experience coordinator in the emergency department at ECU Health Medical Center, he has a deep understanding of the critical role ECU Health serves as the primary health care center in eastern North Carolina. .

“Coming back to ECU Health as the first Resident ASL Interpreter has been a rewarding experience in many different ways,” said Satchell. “You never ‘arrive’ when it comes to interpreting, so this program has helped me build my skills and improve my knowledge about health care. The patients I work with have already helped me become a better interpreter, and I can only hope to continue serving them, learning their needs, breaking down communication barriers, while being a source of help to the next citizen who is coming.”

Barnes said Satchell will help shape the program’s future, as the two work together to assess patient needs while fine-tuning the program to ensure it provides the best resident experience possible. .