What is Medical Translation? —
Medical translation is a complicated translation process that changes text from one language into another which is regulatory, technical, clinical or marketing. There are a variety of industries that are all concerned with medical translation, and these are the pharmaceutical, healthcare and medical fields. Now more than ever, especially in the global expansion of many businesses, these translations need to be precise and accurate so that clinicians, patients and regulators in other countries are able to work with them.
A medical translation professional is not just an individual with excellent linguistic skills, but is frequently a physician, chemist, biologist or other similar professional who has had years of experience translating. Many medical professionals are bilingual and they work for a medical translation service as well in their free time as contractual or consulting work.
How does the process work?
Medical translation is a multi step process. Usually, it is done by a translation agency which looks after the linguistic team and coordinates the medical professionals to work on the translation.
Some of the steps in the process are:
- extraction of source document
- translation of the text from source language to target language
- independent editing by another medical professional in the target language
- proofreading by another medical professional
- one last proofreading or review in the target language country
Standards control
When you are selecting a medical translation company, be sure that they comply with one of the following standards and regulations: ISO 9001, EN 15038, ISO 13485. All of these are internationally recognized standards that are useful in medical translation.
American issues
One of the biggest issues in medical translation in America is that almost a fifth of Americans are actually more comfortable speaking another language at home. This is a very important fact for hospitals and other medical care service facilities, because they need to employ medical translationspecialists as well as interpreters in health care facilities to make sure that the clients and patients are getting the best service possible.
And medical translation is not just a subject that any translator can do — ideally you need somebody who is not only a qualified translator or interpreter, but also a qualified nurse or other healthcare professional. A medical translationhas to be 100% accurate and precise, because it can be a life or death matter if it isn’t.
Trade issues and international commerce
While Spanish translation is making headway in America, and many medical translation needs to be done for Hispanic clients as well, this is also important for international trade. Just taking into account trade with Canada, most literature needs to be done in French and English if it is to be exported to Canada as part of a product. A medical translation in Europe has to appear in at least 10 languages, especially if it is a product that is to be sold on the European market. And in Asia, a medical translationmust be done in Chinese, Japanese, Indian and a host of other languages.













