A list of the different specialties a (mostly) medical interpreter has to work/deal with:
ETC
Big etc here because not only do all of these represent a subset of a niche that ends in very specific terminology an interpreter has to adjust to in real-time, but also because each of these fields can merge with another branch of terminologies of their own subset. Not counting the ones I am not remembering from the top of my head. Feel free to add to the list.
Think of a psychiatric ward, but inside a detention facility. Law meets Health. The call starts with a prison guard who speaks in legislative articles and the rights and obligations the patient/inmate must abide by, and only after a long succession of wrist-cutting sentences, then hands the interpreter to a psychiatrist.
We shift from legal terminology to a more medical and less intimidating one, and then the patient speaks. Often, people end up in these detention centers when they enter the country illegally, and they do end up staying a long time in some cases. Life in places like these ain't for sure easy, and even more when you don't know when, and to where, you will get out.
I've had a handful of calls where the reason for asking for mental health support inside a detention center was uncontrollable anxiety. So, when doctors asked for the reason why they were there, patients/detainees would sail away in a barrage of words that were very rarely well articulated or reflective.
Often, the stories would touch on a few points, like fear of returning to their home country because they were afraid for their lives. Some for being queer, some for having caught up with the wrong type of people. They usually sounded like real stories. Most had also tried to jump the border, but got caught. None of them had sponsors, a person to vouch for them in the US. And there was this common tone in their voices. Fearful to desperate.
Anyways. I diverge. That was not the point. Let's just imagine that call ended as it should and spare you the details. All ended well. Five minutes later, on the next call, the interpreter was sitting with a whole family that flew in from Brazil to one of the high-end speciality clinics that do trial tests, because they will burn whatever resources they have to try and find a cure or a fix for their beloved one's cancer. And this time the doctor speaks in metastases and neoplasms.
It's a broad spectrum. Like life, the universe, and everything. Words are life. Meaning is everything.