UNE welcomes students of the Language Access for New Americans program
The University of New England Clinical Performance Center, located at the Petts Center on UNE’s Biddeford campus, welcomed students of the Language Access for New Americans (LANA) program, for their performance-based, final exam as medical interpreters on December 1, 2008.
LANA aims to improve access to services for refugees and immigrants with limited English skills by improving the quality and increasing the number of interpreting and translating services in Maine.
According to Dolly Hersom, coordinator of this United Way of Greater Portland's initiative, “This medical interpreter program contributes directly and immediately to improving the health outcomes of non-English speaking members of our community.” It is the second year the program has brought its students to UNE’s Clinical Performance Center for this practice-based final exam.
Members of the non-English speaking community served as the “standardized patients” (trained to be the patients) and UNE physician assistant students served as the health care providers for the practical portion of the medical interpreter final exam. The sessions are audio-visually recorded for review and grading.
Lisa Southwick, faculty member of UNE Physician Assistant Program and one of the Instructors of the LANA Medical Interpreter Training, has been a leading force in the development of the training program and this final exam.
The Clinical Performance Center has its own Standardized Patient Program and provides both formative and final evaluation services for the medical and health professional students of the UNE academic community.
According to Anne Summer, Director of the Clinical Performance Center, “This opportunity to partner with LANA is wonderful. We are both focused on the same goal of working to ensure that people receive the best, most compassionate and appropriate health care possible. We are two streams coming together to put patients first in the health care system by all the ways we know to do so. We look forward to their return again in the spring, with another group of hopeful medical interpreters.”