Property Malaysia

by lafrancevi

Medical Translation: Critical Communication

When hiring a translator or translation service it is important to first analyze what type of translation is needed. There are a wide variety of translation services available from judiciary, educational, to literary services. One of the most in-demand services is medical translation.

Medical Translation is considered a specialized field of translation. Translators in the medical field need to be adept at medical terminology, cultural distinctions, and colloquialism. Medical translators are different from medical interpreters. Interpreters work with doctors and specialists to provide immediate translation between caregiver and patient.

Translators are also used to transfer documents such as brochures and other medical materials from one language to another.

In medical translation it’s important to find translators who are also specialists in the medical field. This is because it is impossible to provide accurate translation without comprehension.

For example, the following sentence was taken from a pathophysiology text book:

The onset of hepatorenal manifestations may be gradual or acute. Oliguria and complications of advanced liver disease, including jaundice, ascites, and gastrointestinal bleeding, are usually present.

Understand what’s going on? If you do then you are probably a nurse, pre-med student, or doctor. Pathophysiology is a basic medical course necessary years before even entering medical school. A translator may be fluent and a native speaker of two languages, but without the right background they are ill equipped for medical translations. Any language translation should be done by someone with specific knowledge of the field he or she is translating for.

Medical translation can be provided by companies that specialize in translation services, certified free-lance translators, or automated translation services.

ForeignExchange’s Solutions Development Director, Sandra LaBrasca, talks about the nuances, pitfalls and best practices of medical software translation.
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by uniondocs

Medical translation rules the world

Medical translation is a highly specialized field in translation services, in which medical documents, product brochures and health reports are translated from one language into another. Most of these documents contain lot of medical terms that are beyond the understanding of non-medical translators. Hence it is important that the medical translation be performed by qualified medical experts.

Looking at the growth prospects and rising demand for the medical translation services, many translation companies have entered the market. However not all of them can manage to provide the high level of quality standards in service. As medical translation involves translating the documents that impact the health and safety of people, any mistake in translation can be dangerous and leave your business neck-deep in lawsuits. Due to this, it is very essential to selection a correct translation company for your translation needs.

How to go about selecting a right company for medical translation?

If you are planning to use medical translation service for the first time, you can get easily confused looking at the large number of companies that have started offering this service. If you are in this situation, use this checklist to get help on choosing the correct translation company for your requirements.

What do the old clients have to say about the concerned translation company? Has the company managed to deliver quality work? Could it handle the strict deadlines? Was it flexible enough to accommodate any changes in the requirements? What are the certifications awarded to the translation company? The company having certifications like ISO 9001 and EN 15038 is better geared to provide you with high standards of service, which is essential for medical translation. What are the credentials of the employees hired by the translation company? Are they qualified medical experts? Are they native speakers of the language in which you want to translate the documents? E.g. if you want to translate Japanese medical document, the company should hire Japanese doctors for the job. They are best qualified to give you most accurate results. Can you pay the translation company by your preferred payment method? If you want to pay by credit card but they insist on wire transfer, then the company is no right for you. Is the translation company open to providing translation on the platform of your choice? E.g are you looking to get the document in PDF format for Windows XP? Does the company provide such a service?

The key to selecting the correct translation company will depend on the positive answers to the questions listed above. Answer them and you will not go wrong.

Talking translations with ForeignExchange President, Andres Heuberger on the company’s 12th anniversary.
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Prescription for a medical translation

Health is everyone’s most precious possession.  Hence the international collaboration both in developing new treatment and in dispensing existing treatment.

Yet, international means across countries, which implies that knowledge has to overcome language boundaries. So medical documents have to undergo an in-depth scrutiny and precise translation by medical translators as they “cross the border”. This is called a “medical translation” and is best performed by MDs or by people who received a high level of medical formal education.

A mistake in a medical translation might have dramatic consequences, which is why it is best that at least two medical linguists work on each medical translation, one translating and one editing the translation.

Health is far too valuable to entrust it to an automated translator. When human translators perform medical translations, with no machine translation at all, it considerably reduces the risk to lose life-saving nuances.

This is especially important when the documents are translated between a latin language into a non-latin one such as Hebrew for example. The vast differences in the 2 languages logic and structure, such as exposed in our previous blog “Don’t get ‘Lost in translation’” are further increasing the risk of using automated translation for medical documents.

As medical translation are especially important for documents reaching a large number of people such as medications notices and such, BACK TRANSLATIONS and RECONCILIATION procedures ensures that the content of the original document is reflected exactly in the final translation.

Only a professional medical translation can guarantee that your health will not be put in jeopardy by something as seemingly harmless as a slightly inadequate choice of word.

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by Smithsonian Institution

Medical translation bridges the urgent need of translation

Therefore medical translation is very crucial for a wide range of documents and reports. Medical translation normal deals with the translation of  Multimedia medical applications, psychology papers, patient information papers, Medical texts, medical reports, User guides for medical staff and patients, Medical prescriptions, Clinical, toxicological, pharmacological and biological information, Medical equipment: instruction manuals, brochures and software, medical questionnaires, Equipment, packaging labels and medical terminology glossaries. Medical translation also involves patient information and history records, clinical study reports, patent applications, medical charts, hospital discharge summaries, general medical documents, product specifications, insurance claims, manuscripts and many other documents related with medical terminology.

Medical translator always uses the current and up to date medical terminology, essential brochures and medical books while translating. Medical translation is a highly specialized discipline and should only be translated by suitably qualified translators like qualified doctors who has a vast knowledge and experience in that field and have the good understand of source language and target language. Medical translation is given much priority among translation because it deals with medical field which comes under the essential subject matter which had to be dealt with much care and quick translation into different languages to meet the emergency need of the hour. Translating medical documents and medical terms cannot be entrusted to a translator who simply speaks the native language. The translators use the current medical terminology and slang, appropriate medical terms and culturally sensitive language to give the intended meaning of a medical text.

Medical translation is done by the native speaker who has mastered the language and is an expert in the medical field because certain medical terms and it’s meaning varies from region to region, some local terms are also generally used among them so keeping in mind all these a translator aims at giving the best result in the assigned work.

Medical translation requires very specialized knowledge; the wording should be very exact and can have no ambiguity under any case. Getting the translation of a medical document incorrect can cause confusion, frustration, undue delay and loss of human life. As medical subject deals with many branches of specialization, it is better to hire a translator who has working experience in that specified subject so that the total outcome of the translation is without a mistake. 
A medical translator always understand the importance of urgency and pressure given in the translation of medical document in the assigned languages and meets the need of quick and correct medical translation. Sometimes a medical translator should be available online to meet the doubts and clarification in the translated document. It is always advised to cross check the final medical translation by an expert before delivery of the document to the client. This will ensure a better quality and error free medical translation.