When Clinicians and Patients Do Not Speak the Same Language: A Preface to Interpreting in Health Care

From the last decade of the twentieth century, increasing migration flows as well as people movements across borders for business, education, or tourism have changed the panorama of those who may be in need of medical assistance. For quite a while, health care services have coped with the need to assist patients who have little or no knowledge of the language spoken by the medical staff. Thus, translating between clinicians’ and patients’ languages has developed as an interpreting practice in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries. This special issue deals with some of the problems encountered when communicating through the help of an interpreter, in healthcare.