ABSTRACT
This chapter examines four emerging trends in the literature of bilingual health communication, highlighting their potential for theory advancement and practice implications. These emerging trends, supported by evidence-based studies, provide strong counterarguments to the traditional thinking. In addition, they are opening up new perspectives to conceptualize interpreter-mediated medical encounters. By recognizing the complexity and reality of healthcare practices, researchers have begun to address two puzzles in bilingual health care. Two themes support the development of this trend the reality of interpreter diversity in healthcare settings, and provider's clinical decision-making regarding interpreters. The recent literature, indicates several important and emerging trends in conceptualizing bilingual health care. As researchers from a wide variety of disciplines successfully challenge the blind preference for interpreter-as-conduit, a new world is opened to researchers of healthcare interpreting. The family physicians or pediatric physicians often share long-term relationships with their patients, helping them to address health concerns based on patient's life choices and personal preferences.
