Medical Interpreter Safety During Encounters with Potential for Harm

Instructor

Gustavo Negrete is certified through the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters. He has 15 cumulative years of clinical experience both pre- hospital as an EMT and in hospital as a Patient Care Technician. He also is an Assessed Bilingual Staff Member who provided interpreter services. Currently, he works as an over the phone interpreter (OPI) for Molina Healthcare, where he interprets for various departments such as Nurse Advice Line, Member Services, High Risk OB, Case Management, Health Management, Quality Intervention, Pharmacy, Primary and Specialty Care, and NICU.

Prior to working at Molina Healthcare, he worked for St. Joseph’s Hospital of Orange, a Magnet Hospital which received high marks in various specialties and several recognitions. He worked closely with the ER Physician’s and Cardiologist’s in both capacities and would remain as the interpreter during the consenting and explanation of all procedures, risks and benefits. Strictly speaking on his clinical roles, he primarily worked as a Chest Pain Technician in charge of performing all initial and subsequent EKG’s and screen patients to gather basic information including symptoms, onset and history. In this role, he would also function as a liaison between ER and Cardiology Departments assisting in the scheduling of exams like Stress Test and Lexiscan, providing updates on changes in laboratory results and or EKG. Additionally, he would also prepare patients for emergency intervention such as synchronized cardioversion and catheterization. In another clinical role, he would perform basic patient care such as vital signs, wound care, splinting and several other hands on clinical care.

As a freelance interpreter, he has provided services during Qualified Medical Evaluations, Agreed Medical Evaluations, psychiatric evaluations, surgical consultations including consent (this includes orthopedics, neurology, spinal surgery, ocular surgery, organ transplant), organ donor and recipient education classes, diabetes education classes and diagnostic testing appointments (EMG, EEG, MRI, CT, Stress Test).

Education was received at California State Fullerton, Extended Education Program in Court Interpreting English-Spanish, Spanish-English. Totaling 144 hours of interpreter education.