Episode 101: Seth Hammock, Medical Interpreter

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Medical interpretation is an increasingly important aspect of healthcare that nurses and other members of the interdisciplinary healthcare team must embrace, utilize and understand. We were honored to welcome Seth Hammock of Lone Star Interpreting to RNFM Radio to explain the importance of medical interpretation and how he has become an expert in his field.

Mr Hammock’s career began at Baylor University where he studied Spanish and Computer Science, receiving a B.S. in Computer Science in 2001. In 2003 he joined the Peace Corps and served a two-year tour in Bolivia working with Save the Children’s education programs. He taught math and computer skills to adolescents in a rustic windswept mining town called Oruro at 14,000 feet in the Bolivian Andes. He danced in Carnaval twice and played in a Bolivian band called La Orurga.

After his tour he was hired by the Save the Children to serve as a technical advisor to the country director for developing computer-aided learning programs funded by the U.S. State Department. While in Bolivia he was also worked as a IT consultant for organizations such as the World Wildlife Foundation. In 2008 he returned to Austin, Texas ending four and a half year in Bolivia. However, after news spread of the program in Bolivia he was hired by Save the Children a few months later to travel to Bangladesh and India to continue his work developing computer-aided education programs in rural schools.

Seth then decided to retire from the tech industry for good and stay at home to raise his daughter, Stella. Meanwhile he rediscovered his passion for Spanish and French while volunteering at a health clinic. Last year he founded Lone Star Interpreting of which he is a sole proprietor. He now works as a contract English-Spanish medical and legal interpreter and translator and has logged more than two hundred hours in Workman’s comp, infectious disease and criminal justice cases since his practice was established.

His personal interests are his wife Jennifer—who is a nurse supervisor—and his three-and-a-half year old. In his free time he reads Spanish novels and psychology, specifically Carl Jung and Freud’s dream psychology and has logged more than 300 hundred dreams. He also studies the classical guitar and public speaking with Toastmasters International, the bilingual chapter in Austin.