Note: All the text of the introduction to the Consecutive Interpretation chapter of The Interpreter's Rx is reproduced here. No attempt has been made, however, to make the HTML version look like the page layout of the book.

Consecutive interpretation, in which the interpreter waits until a complete statement has been spoken and then begins interpreting (so only one person is speaking at a time), is the primary form of interpretation used in medical situations. Simultaneous interpretation is generally inappropriate in such situations.

Consecutive Lessons 1-16 (Tapes 1A - 2A) are typical medical interpreting situations. When you play the tapes, pause the recorder at the end of each question, give your interpretation, resume playing the tape, pause at the end of the answer, give your interpretation, and so on. Do not read the script while you are interpreting; consult it afterwards to check for accuracy or to look up problem terms.

When you do the consecutive lessons, ideally you should have two tape recorders: one to play the tape, and one to record your own rendition. Pause the tape as described above. Then record your version of the passage on the second tape recorder. When you play back your own rendition, read along in the script as you are listening to it, to check for accuracy. If you do not have two tape recorders, you can switch cassettes in the same recorder. Alternatively, you can give your rendition without recording it, and simply read the script immediately afterwards to check for omissions.

As with the sight translation texts, terms that may pose translation problems are footnoted; the medical terms can be found in the glossaries in Chapter 4. Many of the Spanish terms can be found in "Términos coloquiales relacionados con la medicina popular" in Chapter 4.

Many student interpreters are intimidated by consecutive interpreting because they think they don't have an adequate memory. In fact, the average person's memory is more than adequate for consecutive interpreting; the main problem is listening skills. If you are in a high-pressure situation (in class, with fellow students listening to your interpretation; in an exam, with the examiners grading you; in real life, with an impatient doctor anxious to move on to the next patient) you may not devote all of your energy to concentrating on what the speaker is saying. The first thing you need to do is learn to shut out distractions and focus all of your attention on the message that is to be interpreted.

If a friend tells you some juicy gossip in a 20-minute phone conversation, chances are you can recount the story almost verbatim to another friend immediately afterwards. You can apply the same mnemonic techiques to enhance your memory in medical interpreting. Most of the messages you will be interpreting in the medical setting are simply stories: a patient describing an accident or a series of symptoms; a doctor explaining a medical procedure or describing the effects of a medication. These stories tend to follow a logical sequence that is fairly easy to remember if you are listening carefully and have some background knowledge. You remember the gossip your friend tells you because you have background knowledge (i.e., you know the parties involved and the circumstances surrounding the story), and you are interested in retaining the content of the message (you want to be the first to break the news to your other friend). In the medical setting, you will be able to listen more attentively and retain more information if you develop an interest in the subject matter and learn background information to help you better understand what the patients and health professionals are talking about.

To help yourself remember a long, detailed statement, imagine that the person is a friend telling you a story. Visualize the story taking place, step by step, and when you interpret it into the target language, play it back like a movie. You may want to organize the words into meaningful groups, or "chunks," either mentally or by writing down a list of key words, one for each idea. For example, consider the following statement by a patient:

Estaba haciendo mis compras en el mercado y cuando estaba en el departamento de verduras, el piso estaba mojado y me resbalé. Me caí boca arriba con los pies estirados así, y sentí que me tronó algo en la espalda. Me dolía mucho la cabeza, casi me desmayé. Me ayudaron a levantarme y llamaron a la ambulancia para llevarme al hospital.

You can divide it up into these chunks, visualizing each step:

Estaba haciendo mis compras en el mercado

cuando estaba en el departamento de verduras

el piso estaba mojado

me resbalé

Me caí boca arriba con los pies estirados así

sentí que me tronó algo en la espalda

Me dolía mucho la cabeza

casi me desmayé

Me ayudaron a levantarme

llamaron a la ambulancia para llevarme al hospital

If you want to take down key words for each chunk, you might write or abbreviate the following words:

compras

verduras

mojado

resbalé

boca arriba

tronó espalda

cabeza

desmayé

levantarme

ambulancia

Of course, these notes should be just a supplement to your memory; if you did not listen carefully and understand the message fully, this list of words would be almost meaningless to you. Some interpreters find note-taking very helpful, others find it a hindrance. Some statements are very easy to visualize, while others are more abstract or technical in nature. If the message is something that does not lend itself to visualization, like a list of symptoms or side-effects, you may rely more on notes than on your visual memory. You should experiment with different mnemonic techniques as you do the lessons in this book to help you understand how your memory works and develop the techniques that work best for you.