SYRACUSE — Understanding a diagnosis or the doctor’s instructions on how to treat an illness are crucial to receiving good health care, but are often a challenge for those who don’t speak or are not yet fluent in English. And while health-care providers are required to offer translation services, there is a shortage of well-trained interpreters to do the job.

That’s why Multicultural Association of Medical Interpreters (MAMI), based in Utica, has partnered with Onondaga Community College (OCC) to offer a new medical-interpreter training program to be held weekends starting Sept. 14. Tuition for the 135-hour course is $1,260, with tuition-assistance funding available for eligible candidates through CNY Works.

MAMI has locations in Utica, Syracuse, and Albany, and Executive Director Cornelia Brown estimates there are about 30,000 refugees from other countries in each of those areas. “We estimate that at least half of those people are limited-English proficient,” she says.

That constraint leads to a host of complications from the patients not being able to tell the doctor exactly what is wrong with them to not understanding the doctor’s treatment plan for their ailment, Brown says. “They may not understand the seriousness of the problem,” she adds.

On top of that, cultural differences often create barriers. Refugees may feel more comfortable using treatments popular in their home country without understanding that those treatments may be risky, she says. Or they may feel it’s impolite to say that they don’t understand something the doctor is saying.

That’s where a well-trained interpreter really comes into play, Brown notes. Not only do these interpreters translate language between the two parties, but they are also trained in the cultural aspects of different countries so that they may also interpret body language, facial expressions, and other non-verbal cues to help ensure the patients truly understand what’s happening in the examination room.

That understanding is not only important for the patient, but also for the health-care provider, who could be held liable if the interpreting services are sub-standard, Brown says. Simply finding someone who speaks the needed language is not enough, she says. They need to understand all the legalities that surround medical interpreting.

Course

The new 135-hour course at OCC will provide that training through a multi-phase approach that not only covers topics such as language and communication dynamics, ethical principles, overview of the health-care system, laws and regulations, medical terminology, and skills for mediating cultural differences, but also provides opportunities for students to practice what they are learning. The program also teaches students how to self-monitor to ensure they are providing accurate interpreting services, Brown says.

Students in the program must be fluent in at least two languages and pass language-skills screening. The $75 cost of the screening will be deducted from tuition once a student registers for the class. Some of the languages that MAMI sees the most need for include Albanian, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Sapo, Somali, and Spanish.

The program needs a minimum of 17 students and can take a maximum of 25, Brown says, adding that she doesn’t think there will be a problem filling the class due to the high need for well-trained interpreters.

To help spread the word about the class, MAMI is reaching out to community centers and other organizations that serve refugees to make people aware of the program. About 95 percent of MAMI’s approximately 150 independent interpreters are former refugees who have become fluent enough in English to offer interpreting services to the roughly 100,000 people that MAMI serves annually.

Brown says her hope is to employ new graduates of the program in one of MAMI’s three locations. Interpreters are typically employed as independent contractors, but can become staff members in time based upon need and performance, Brown notes. MAMI currently employs 35 people between its three locations.

Brown hopes that students graduating from the program will be ready to obtain national certification as a medical interpreter.

Interested students may obtain more information online at www.sunyocc.edu or by emailing the college at lifelong@sunyocc.edu or MAMI at info@MAMIinterpreters.org.

Along with the new medical-interpreting program, MAMI is also working to ensure there are enough trained interpreters to help in legal settings. Currently, MAMI has four certified legal interpreters, but is hoping to expand that number with a training course it hopes to hold in the fall or next spring, Brown says.

Headquartered at 309 Genesee St. in Utica, MAMI, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation, reported on its 2011 IRS Form 990 total revenue of $1.4 million, up from just over $1 million the year before. Of that revenue, $1.3 million comes from program service revenue. Typically the health-care providers and other organizations that require interpreter services pay MAMI for the cost of interpreting.

MAMI reported expenses of $1.3 million, up from $942,265 the year before, with $694,937 going toward salaries. MAMI reported a fund balance of $525,323, up from $422,045.

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SYRACUSE — As the nation moves closer to insurance requirements in the federal health-care reform law, students in the health-care degree programs at Bryant & Stratton College know it’s an issue they’ll deal with as they pursue jobs.

“We talk about that … in every class that we teach,” says Sherry Pearsall, faculty member and practicum coordinator at Bryant & Stratton’s James Street campus.

Bryant & Stratton operates local campuses at 953 James St. in Syracuse and at 8687 Carling Road in Clay.

A combined total of about 1,100 students are enrolled at the two campuses, about 45 percent of whom are enrolled in medical-degree programs, according to the school.

Bryant & Stratton College offers health-care degree programs that prepare students for jobs in medical administrative assisting, medical assisting, and health-services administration.

The medical-degree programs have the highest enrollment of any of the programs offered at the two local campuses, according to Bryant & Stratton. The majority of students pursuing degrees in these fields attend class at the campus on James Street.

And those students are finding jobs upon completing their degree, according to Bryant & Stratton.

“It’s just not at all difficult to place a student that has a medical degree,” Pearsall says.

Over the past five years, Bryant & Stratton graduates in all degree programs in the Syracuse–area campuses have a job-placement rate of 88 percent in their field of study, more than 30 percent higher than the national average for college graduates, as determined by the Bethlehem, Pa.–based National Association of Colleges and Employers, according to the school.

About the health-care programs

The medical administrative-assisting program provides students with experience in operating a medical office, says Pearsall.

“They receive content in medical-office procedures, anatomy and physiology, medical terminology,” Pearsall says.

Graduates pursue jobs in physician offices, urgent-care settings, and in the financial-aid department of hospitals, she says.

The medical-assisting program combines administrative and clinical work, Pearsall says.

The course work includes the same classes as the program for the medical administrative-assisting degree, but also clinical course work.

“So, this individual could run the front office for a doctor and then also work in the back with patients,” she says.

That could mean assisting the doctor with the treatments and procedures, histories and physicals, doing electrocardiograms, checking a patient’s vital signs, helping with minor- surgical procedures, and coordinating all patient-care activity, Pearsall says.

Bryant & Stratton College also offers a bachelor’s degree program in health-services administration, with classes on both campuses.

“That prepares a student to be able to enter the health-care field [in] entry-level management,” she says.

Students are required to have internships. Those in the medical administrative-assistant degree program will intern in a medical office, completing 90 hours of administrative experience. Medical-assisting students complete 160 hours.

“When they go to this internship, it’s our expectation that they work as a staff member, and they’re to treat that as a job,” Pearsall explains.

Bryant & Stratton works to help its graduating students find a job within 90 days of earning their degree, says Shaunna Arnold-Plank, associate director of career services for the college’s James Street campus.

“Placement is fairly easy for them just because [of] their internship experience,” Arnold-Plank says.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com

DeWITT — Le Moyne College recently announced that it is the new home of a program focused on ethics in business.

And the program cited the school’s work in creating the Jesuit Case Series, a group of business cases with “particular attention to issues of ethics, leadership, and sustainability,” in choosing Le Moyne to house the organizations.

The Pedro Arrupe S.J. Program of Christian Social Ethics in Business is now operating as part of Le Moyne’s Madden School of Business. The program will be housed under the Center for Reflective Leadership and Business Ethics, one of three centers within the Madden School of Business.

The Arrupe program includes the chapters of the Woodstock Business Conference (WBC), which Le Moyne describes as a “key component” of Arrupe and the signature project housed within the program.

“They (the programs) chose Le Moyne,” says James (Jim) Joseph, the incoming dean of the Madden School of Business.

Le Moyne will install Joseph, the former president and CEO of Oneida Ltd., as dean in early 2014, he says.

The Arrupe program previously operated at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, which closed as of June 30.

An “anonymous foundation in Europe that supports Catholic initiatives” approved the move because it controls the endowment for the program, says Joseph.

That foundation’s board met in Europe on July 9 and voted to transfer the seven-figure endowment from Georgetown to Le Moyne, Joseph says.

How it came about

Joseph learned about the program during a two-day international conference that John Fontana, a senior fellow of the Arrupe Program, conducted back in October, he says.

Fontana also now serves as the director of the WBC.

The WBC includes a total of 16 chapters, including those located in London, England and Winnipeg, Canada, according to the website for the Woodstock Theological Center. The WBC provides a network for exploring ideas related to the integration of faith and work, according to Le Moyne.

Joseph described the attendees as “bright, successful, caring, compassionate human beings that view business as a higher calling,” he says.

The attendees included representatives from the WBC chapter in Scranton, Pa., which is home to the University of Scranton, which, like Le Moyne, is a Jesuit college, according to Joseph.

The Scranton representatives invited Joseph to begin participating in their monthly meetings, which he has done. The dean of the University of Scranton’s Kania School of Business even asked Joseph to speak about the Jesuit Case Series.

After the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University announced earlier this year it would close at the end of June, the WBC and the Arrupe program needed a new home, Joseph says.

Citing the interest in the Jesuit Case Series, John Fontana, director of the WBC, asked if the organization could move to Le Moyne, and the school sees the Arrupe program and WBC chapters as coinciding with its vision for the Madden School of Business, according to Joseph.

“It is going to attract significant thought leaders and speakers to our campus that will speak on issues of business in society,” he says.

Le Moyne will maintain the existing 16 WBC chapters and will add new ones, including one in the Syracuse area, the school said.

The mission of the Arrupe Program in Social Ethics for Business is “to develop, refine, and communicate an empirically-based Christian social ethics for business,” according to the website for the Woodstock Theological Center.

Le Moyne’s Jesuit Case Series provides an opportunity for integration with the work of WBC chapters in the U.S and abroad, Le Moyne Provost Linda LeMura said in a news release.

In collaboration with 93 other Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. and around the world, the Madden School said it is creating a platform dedicated to the development and distribution of business cases with particular attention to issues of ethics, leadership, and sustainability.

“Working with their academic counterparts, WBC chapter members will be encouraged to share their stories in case-study format with Jesuit business-school students,” said LeMura.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com