Addressing Language Access Issues in Your Practice: A Toolkit for ...

1 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS
Acknowledgments
From the Author:
Many thanks to those physicians, interpreters, health care professionals and administrators whose shared knowledge
and experience have contributed to this toolkit.
In addition, I would like to thank those who reviewed this document: Clyde Beck, MD; Chester Choi, MD, Mark
Dressner, MD; Anna Marie Gonzalez, MD; Asma Jafri, MD; and Eric Ramos, MD.
Special thanks also to Alice Chen, MD, for her invaluable input. The California Academy of Family Physicians
would also like to acknowledge and thank the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum for making the
expertise of Dr. Chen available for this project while she was completing a Soros Physician Advocacy Fellowship.
This resource guide was developed with financial support from The California Endowment. We are grateful to The
Endowment and Ignatius Bau, JD, our program officer, for his dedicated support of this work.
Cynthia E. Roat, MPH
About the Author:
Cynthia Roat is a consultant and trainer on issues related to language access in health care. She has been a trainer
for more than 23 years, starting her career working in rural development programs in Latin America, after which
she earned a Masters degree in International Public Health from the University of Washington in Seattle. Certified
by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services for both medical and social service interpreting,
she has been a medical interpreter since 1992. She has made significant contributions in the areas of training, program
development, policy formulation, advocacy and organizational outreach. Cynthia is the principle author of
Bridging the Gap, currently the most widely offered training for medical interpreters in the United States. She is a
founding member of the Society of Medical Interpreters in Seattle and Co-chair of the Advisory Committee of the
National Council on Interpreting in Health Care and is known nationally as an energetic advocate for the field of
health care interpreting and for interpreters in general.
The California Academy of Family Physicians, established in 1948, is the largest single medical specialty society in
California with more than 7,000 family physician, family medicine resident, and medical student members.
The mission of the California Academy of Family Physicians is:
• To enhance, strengthen and promote the specialty of family medicine;
• To promote professional and personal growth for its members; and
• To advocate for family-centered care for all Californians.