Everything You Need to Know About Medical Translation

Translation is a multifaceted industry. While some translation companies may focus exclusively on generating localised marketing copy for an international corporation, others concentrate on healthcare. Some agencies juggle both specialisations to assist businesses with all their translation, localisation, or globalisation needs. 

When it comes to offering medical translation services, an agency works with records and studies that relate to the healthcare system. Here's everything you need to know about the service they provide.

What is Medical Translation? 

Medical or healthcare translation is a process that converts healthcare documents from one language into another. In many cases, these services provide certified and notarised work recognized by health officials, organizations, and other authorities to be accurate and true. 

Unlike interpreters who help patients speak with doctors and other medical personnel, healthcare translators stick to the written word.

Types of Documents Needing Translation

The healthcare industry represents a wide variety of professionals specialising in particular fields - from general practitioners who diagnose and treat illnesses to equipment manufacturers who produce assistive devices for people with reduced mobility. 

With this kind of variety in the industry, a medical translation service may assist on a broad selection of projects. 

Here is a small sample of the types of translation projects a certified translator might work on: 

• Patient Records

• Technical Data Sheets

• Clinical Trials

• Patient Guides

• Brochures

• Lectures

• Intake Forms

• Maintenance Manuals

• Drug Approvals

• Health and Safety Guides 

• Lab Results

• Consent and Assent Forms

A Basic Profile of the Typical Medical Translator

While every professional brings their unique history and perspective to a job, every healthcare translator shares some things in common. 

Here's what you can expect from a professional.

A Native Speaker's Understanding of the Target Language:

Native speakers have an understanding of their language that goes beyond fluency. In many cases, it means they first learnt to speak using this language, and they still live in a country where they speak it as the nation's official language.  

Professional healthcare translation services retain freelancers from all over the world, so they can deploy linguists who are native speakers of your target language and residents of the country where your document originates. 

Expert Knowledge of the Healthcare Industry

Medical translators are professionals who have experience in your field. This experience helps them parse through complicated medical terminology to recreate it faithfully in your target language. 

Any healthcare translation service worth its salt fills its roster of translators with professionals who have several years of industry experience. These professionals will undergo routine testing to ensure they make the correct choices when translating important documents. 

Only translators with this experience can produce accurate work that adheres to the stringent rules set by the industry.

Unerring Attention to Detail

Mistranslations can lead to misinterpreting a diagnosis or course of treatment, which puts people's lives in danger - not to mention how it could get the healthcare practitioner in hot water if they're found at fault.  

Healthcare translators understand the importance of getting the wording right, so they take care to create accurate translations that follow formatting standards. 

The Takeaway

Patient guides, equipment manuals, clinical trials: these highly technical documents contain information that profoundly affects the public's health and safety. With these risks at stake, you need an experienced healthcare translator to ensure nothing gets lost in translation.