r/medicalinterpreters

Hello fellow interpreters!

I was wondering whether any of you can provide advice on how to obtain some remedies related to termination from my position as a US-based OPI Interpreter with AMN Healthcare.

There’re many things that concern me about this termination. I would ideally like my employment to be restored, but if not, I would at least like to not be denied unemplpyment benefits. Looking for your advice.

Although I do not have a written notification of my termination, it was orally explained to me during my “farewell online meeting” with my supervisor that the reason for termination is my alleged use of a cell phone while interpreting an online session. The company policy prohibits “to answer or make personal calls, text, and email from a cell phone, or any other electronic device, while in a session”. However, I never engaged in the above actions and only used the cell phone to start or stop the alarm to keep track of the times when to log on and off. Ironically, my manager and I had previously talked about setting up alarms to ensure attendance compliance.

It profoundly struck me that not only I was never given a written acknowledgment of my termination, but the above “farewell online meeting” consisted of the manager simply stating the termination and hanging up the phone without an opportunity to request any clarification, after which my online access to all systems was immediately terminated.

I am even more strengthened in my belief that the phone situation was used as a false pretext for termination due to the following:

In March AMN Healthcare management emailed us about workforce optimization measures due to decreased demand for services from clients and terminated many availability-only interpreters and decreased the hours worked by other interpreters (6 hours in case of part-time workers, and I forgot how many hours in case of full-time workers).

Around the same time I noticed disproportionate use of disciplinary action. In my case I was given a "final warning" for not having logged PTO hours for an unplanned absence, and notably this “final warning” was given after 7 months of a clean record (the previous warning 7 months prior was for being late to the shift).

I want to point out that, although AMN Healthcare has a bad reputation for its relationships with employees, it is not my goal to commiserate on here. We all know that big providers of remote interpretation services suck big time. Many times proven. Rather I’d be seeking your advice on how to either restore my employment or ensure I have a strong case for unemployment benefits. I appreciate your help!

CONTEXT (if u care): I finally purchased the MITS Spanish-English interpreting 10-module online training. I've been going back & forth for about a year now on whether I should do it or not, but I finally did it. I've kind of been hesitant because for the longest time, I wanted to become an elementary school teacher. I got my bachelor's in Child Development, worked in an afterschool program, bilingual aide & subbed for a whole school year & loved all of these different experiences, but I'm convinced I don't want to teach (for several reasons).
Anyway, my 1st language is Spanish, I come from 1st genertion of immigrant background in CA & have seen how some of my family hesitate going to the doctors for many reasons, but the major one is language barriers. One of my family members (Spanish-speaking only) had a health scare (results came back negative, yay!) with breast cancer, which was scary for our family. But when they were telling me the news, I couldn't help but feel sad bc they didn't have anyone to go to the appt with them, so I can only imagine how scary navigating getting big news like that was for them AND on top of that, not fully understanding what the doctors were telling them. This scenario led me to look into medical interpreting.
I want to be able to help my community in some sort of capacity & I think this path can be hard, scary, but at the same time rewarding. Bc I saw 1st hand how family members struggled with language barriers. BUT if I'm being completely transparent, I AM NERVOUS as hellllll to start this new journey. (side note I am 30 & my bf is already on his 3rd year as a teacher & he's been supportive about this but I'm fighting so hard to not overthink where I'm at in life, career-wise). I'm nervous that I'm starting all over, that I changed my path, that it may not work out, that I may not be good at it. I know these are just overthinking thoughts & I'll be okay bc starting something new is scary. I also don't know where to apply work-wise after I am done with the 40hr course + passing the national exams??? BUT I know I will be fine.

MY ACTUAL QUESTION(S) lol: I purchased the MITS online training for Spanish interpreting yesterday & need tips and recommendations on the best way to do the modules. Should I do them in order? Is it okay to skip around? I welcome any tips and recommendations about the MITS program or the medical interpreting process!! Thank you in advance!

( THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO READ THE WHOLE THING <3)

Hi everyone,

For those who have taken the NBCMI Spanish/English oral exam, about how many seconds were the consecutive interpreting utterances?

What was the longest one you remember?

Also, if anyone who passed is open to messaging me with advice, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks!

I finished my medical interpretation training last month and tried getting into volunteer interpretation before starting an actual job, but when I tried to practice At home using videos on youtube I felt overwhelmed and never thought I would struggle even with my own home language, listening to understand and putting what I understand into another different language is completely different, I am very curious and interested in interpreters first experience because I am feeling like I can't do this at all, I couldn't find the right words in seconds even as a consecutive interpreter, I kept doing it for several minutes today and its hell hard 😭 How did u handle it and become professional in this???