Translation connects people. Business with their customers. Decision-makers to multi-million deals. But they also ensure people get their health and life back on track. And this comes from medical document translation. Often the most challenging and rewarding as you’re making a difference by saving lives every single day.
What is Medical Document Translation
Medical Document Translation Service is one of the most challenging niches of translating because of the difficulty and the risk of any mistake. With a high specialization for all translators, there are often shortages of translation specialists in the medical translation field.
Medical Documents use specialized terminology and newly developed concepts that may not even exist in the given target language.
General translation alone is not enough to deliver an accurate medical translation. As the medical field is broad, translators need experience and expertise in the knowledge area and medical discipline for the specific document.
By having Medical Documents translated by a professional, Doctors and Nurses will have a better understanding of the patient’s health if they have access to the patient’s translated health care records. Patients will gain a better awareness of any details regarding any surgery or medical procedure they are planning to undergo.
Types of Medical Documents
Standard Medical Documents that are translated for doctors and patients are:
- Basic Patient Medical History
- Patient Consent Forms for any medical procedure
- Post-Discharge Instructions for all patients
- Clinical Trials and Protocols
- Package Inserts and Labels
- Production Manuals & Protocols
- Pharmacological Studies
- Regulatory Documents
Translating Medical Documents: Why it is so hard!
Illustration on Why Translating Medical Documents is Getting Tougher
Need Specialized Medical Knowledge
The Medical field has a language of its own with the different jargon and terminology used.
As there are thousands of different abbreviations and acronyms, it’s hard to find the exact translation as there may be different meanings depending on the dictionary or scientific literature.
That’s why it’s crucial to work with a medical business that has a translated glossary or can work with you to create a term book.
Untranslatable Words
As Medical Translation is a technical field, there will be untranslatable words, as they are only applicable to the specific context. In most medical documents, translators will find a word that has no direct transition in the target language, often losing the entire meaning of the term when translated.
Medical translators will need to work with their employers to make decisions regarding the words that can be replaced to ensure the context is kept.
Communication Type
In the medical field, the audience for the document influences the translation.
Translation to the medical-field audience has five categories:
Professional to Professional (Doctor to Doctor)
Professional to Semi-Professional (Doctor to Nurse or Medical Student)
Professional to Non-Professional (Doctor to Patient)
Mixed (Patient to Patient)
Non-Professional (Reporter to Reader)
An example of this translation of an existing medical term:
Medical Register – Candidiasis
General Register – Yeast Infection
Mixed (Candidiasis or Yeast Infection)
This makes the translation more confusing and difficult, as you have to cater to those categories above. This doesn’t include colloquial terms, abbreviations, or acronyms used for these medical terminologies.
Medical translation is the hardest to translate because the words branch off from Latin and Greek words that have no direct translation to other languages.
Constantly Updated
Staying up to date with medical industry knowledge is crucial as there is regularly new specialized terminology being created.
Being able to immerse in the latest medical research, subscribing to scientific journals, and keeping updated with the latest new development will help translators develop a nuanced understanding of their medical field.
Eponyms
A big portion of the medical terminology is eponyms. Terms including Parkinson’s Diseases, Adam’s apply, Lou Gehrig Disease, Alzheimer’s Diseases, Lyme Disease, and Othello’s Syndrome are all derived from people’s names, parts of human anatomy, signs and symptoms, medical procedures, geographical places, or fictional characters.
Eponymous terms may also have doublets in the same language, meaning two similar strands or part of a disease. For example, the eponymous term for a type of intestinal parasite for Giardia lamblia can also be called Giardia intestinalis or Giardia duodenalis.
This creates issues with translation as you try to find the equivalent in the target language.
Word Salad
Doublets, Affixations, and word compounding can make it hard to translate into other languages. Compound nominal phases used in Medical English, including patient safety and heart failure may have syntactic shifts or phase changes.
For example:
Prefixes and Suffixes
Adipo – Fatty
Carnio – Of the cranium
Hyper – Excessive
Itis – Inflammation
Algia – Pain
Doublets
Osseous Tissue – Bone
Optic Nerve – Eye
Frontal Bone – Forehead
Oral Cavity – Mouth
Auditory Canal – Ear
How to Make the process of Translating Medical Documents Easier
Illustration on Medical Translation: How to make process of translating medical documents easier
Translation Memory
Translation memory is a database that stores paragraphs, sentences, and parts of texts that have been previously translated. It splits texts into small segments and stores their translations in a database.
Translators can reuse the previous translation when a segment is found in the text, reducing the time needed to search for reference materials.
Although not all segments showed are exactly the same. By using computer-assisted translation tools, they can identify similar fragments of texts. Similarities below 65% are called fuzzy matches, usually not as useful and may need to be manually translated.
The more content that is translated, the less guesswork the medical translator needs to do, resulting in a professional level of accuracy and consistency with faster turnaround time in their translation.
If it’s your first time working with a healthcare provider for your translation service, discussing putting a glossary of texts and terminology will be beneficial for any future medical document translation projects.
Communication
In the medical industry, every worker is constantly busy. However, poor communication between doctor and patient could lead to life-or-death consequences.
As there are legal and ethical responsibilities with your position as a healthcare provider, making sure you find the time to solve specific problems that your translator has is crucial to getting your intended message across to the patient.
This will result in happier patients with less misinterpretation of information and fewer mistakes.
Translating Medical Documents: Conclusion
As the medical industry continues to expand, it presents all stakeholders with several challenges as they are required to comply with new requirements and regulations. The process of translating medical documents with the need for accuracy of each document should be written at the highest level as the company’s reputation and patient’s health relies on it.
For a translator, in the beginning, identifying its register and translating the phrases to the target language can be hard. Having a professional medical background can help increase your overall understanding and allow you to flourish as a medical translator.
Why Choose TranslateRight For Online Translation Services
Translated Right is a certified professional technical translation agency that provides online translations online in 50+ languages. Our translation services languages include English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil, Japanese, French, and more. Providing fast, accurate, and reliable, professional translation services for all types of documents, formats, and lengths.
With over 5000+ professional and experienced translators, we’ve filtered out the best translator using our stringent and detailed interviewing process, ensuring that you can hire only the best-qualified person for your specific translation document.
This has allowed us to simplify the whole entire technical translation process, resulting in a smooth application process.
This is seen by our 1000+ of satisfied customers from our competitive prices, friendly and efficient translation services.
If you’re looking for a translation service near me that can translate from a source language to the desired target language that conforms to the requirements of the technical side of your industry, Translated Right can help you today.
Providing a streamlined and hassle-free process, get your document translated by a professional service today.
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