Tokyo University of Foreign Studies will start a new medical interpreter training course in 2025. The course will be offered in three languages: English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, and will be run as a certificate program for working adults with the cooperation of Tokyo University of Science.
According to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, the course will be offered every Saturday from April to August 2025 in the spring term, and every Saturday from September to December in the fall term, for a total of 4 hours. In the spring term, students will study six subjects: "Introduction to Medicine I," "Introduction to Interpreting," and "Medical Interpreting I," while in the fall term, students will study "Introduction to Medicine II," "Basics of Multicultural Coexistence," and "Medical Interpreting II."
All courses are basically online, but there is one practical training session each term at the Yushima campus of Tokyo University of Science in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo. Lecturers include Takuya Okada, head of the International Medical Department at Tokyo University of Science Hospital, Yoshimi Kojima, director of the Multicultural Coexistence Center at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and interpreters Heather Glass and Kumi Iwata.
The course fee is 29 yen, and 7,000 people in total will be recruited for all three languages. Students will be selected through a first screening based on documents and a second screening based on written and oral examinations. Those who complete the course will be issued a certificate of completion based on the School Education Act. Applications are open until December 3nd.
As the number of residence statuses has expanded, many foreigners are now living in Japan, and the number of foreigners visiting for tourism, medical treatment, etc. is also increasing. However, there are few medical institutions that can accommodate foreigners when they visit due to sudden illness or injury, and communication with medical staff has become an issue.
This medical interpreter training course was designed to solve this problem, training people who can facilitate accurate communication between Japanese medical staff and foreign patients.
