Education Commons^™

Exploring Deaf Physicians’ And Physician Trainees’ Experiences With Designated Interpreters, Todd S.K. Agan

Master of Arts in Interpreting Studies and Communication Equity Thesis or Action Research Project

The term “designated interpreter,” introduced by Hauser, Finch, and Hauser (2008), continues to be an emerging concept in the field of signed language interpretation. Whereas this role has been discussed by deaf professional and designated interpreter teams, or by interpreters themselves, there is a lack of perspective on this role exclusively from those deaf professionals who work with interpreters. Using a demographic survey and an ethnographic interview, deaf physicians and physician trainees were asked about their experiences with interpreters for this pilot study, and to conceptualize what a designated interpreter is and does. Results of this study suggest that a …