PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO TRAINING SPECIALISTS IN FIELD-SPECIFIC TRANSLATION IN U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

The relevance of the proposed study is foregrounded by processes of globalization, the growth of migration flows, and the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity within healthcare systems, which brings to the forefront the issue of ensuring high-quality medical communication. Language barriers between patients and healthcare professionals can lead to diagnostic errors, treatment complications, and threats to patient safety. In this context, the professional training of medical and pharmaceutical interpreters capable of providing accurate, ethically sound, and culturally sensitive transmission of medical information becomes particularly important. Of significant interest in this regard is the experience of higher education institutions in the United States, where the training of such interpreters has an institutionalized and systematic character. The purpose of the study is to analyse the pedagogical approaches used in U.S. higher education institutions to train specialists in medical and pharmaceutical translation and interpretation, and to identify possibilities for applying this experience to improve domestic educational practice. The study employs a complex of methods, including analysis and synthesis of scholarly sources to generalize theoretical approaches to interpreter training; comparative pedagogical analysis of educational programs at various universities; content analysis of regulatory and legal documents (CLAS Standards, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, documents of the NCIHC, CCHI, and NBCMI); structural and functional analysis of the content, forms, and methods of instruction; and an interpretative-analytical method to assess the potential for adapting U.S. experience in Ukraine. The results of the study indicate that the training of medical and pharmaceutical interpreters in the United States is characterized by its comprehensive nature, competency-based orientation, focus on national certification, active use of clinical situation simulations, role-playing, and technologies of remote and telemedical interpreting. Educational programs integrate linguistic, medical, ethical, and intercultural training and are implemented in close cooperation with healthcare institutions. It is concluded that the U.S. experience in training medical and pharmaceutical interpreters can serve as an effective model for the development and modernization of relevant programs in higher education institutions in Ukraine, with the aim of improving the quality of medical communication and patient safety in a multilingual environment.