title: The use of interpreters in medical settings and forensic medical examinations in Australia: the relationship between medicine and linguistics.
abstract: Medical examinations are dependent on combining communication with professional competence. In the development of a global multicultural community with the use of multiple languages, doctors have become increasingly dependent on language facilitation such as interpreting and translation. Despite professional studies, the use of language facilitation with its associated problems has not been fully explored in graduate and post-graduate medical and forensic medical training. There may still be some lack of reciprocal understanding between the medical and linguistic fields, their ethics, obligations and limits although both fields and their ethical frameworks are closer related than might be expected. This article is a discussion that aims at providing a basic understanding of guidelines as to the origin and appropriate use of language interpretation in medical and forensic medical examinations.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Division of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Australia; Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians, UK; Australasian Association of Forensic Physicians, Australia; German Society for Legal Medicine (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rechtsmedizin), Germany; French Society of Legal Medicine (Société Française de Médecine Légale), France; International Association of Forensic Linguists. Electronic address: jason.schreiber@vifm.org.
authors.forename: Jason R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Schreiber
authors.affiliation: Clinical Division of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Australia; Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians, UK; Australasian Association of Forensic Physicians, Australia; Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Morris S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Odell
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D003144:Communication Barriers; D054521:Cultural Competency; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D010808:Physical Examination; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D014175:Translating
keywords: Language interpreting; Linguistics; Medical examination