29 Dec Three facts to be aware of when you need a medical translator

You might be managing clinical research and need to translate a questionnaire about drug outcomes into other languages. This is just one example of the many situations in which people need professional, high-quality translations. In this article we give you three facts about medicine and medical translators.

 Medical translation is a totally separate field of translation

Although its name might suggest that it is sub-field of translation, medical translation is in fact an entirely separate field in the translation industry. Medical translation is a highly regulated field and needs specific qualifications, which is why it is treated as a separate field most of the time, even bynon-specialised translation agencies.

There is a process involved in translating medical texts

Depending on the text, medical translation can be quite different from any other field of translation. There is tight control over text migration when migrating source text from one language to another, or from one country to another, so the first challenge is to produce text that is similar to the original. Proper migration is checked using several methods, one of which is the backward translation of the whole translated text followed by a discussion between the project managers and linguistic experts. Another tool is an additional review performed by a local doctor who speaks both the source and target languages and is familiar with the medical language in the targeted country.

Medical dictionaries are essential

As there is no such thing as the perfect translator, even good medically trained and updated professionals need access to the most useful medical dictionaries. They will probably need to use them while performing the translation, since every language has an official language committee that decides onthecorrect translation of terms. The medical field is one of the most rapidly changing and new technologies and therapies are emerging everyday. As a result, there are new terms and this means that dictionaries are essential. Linguistic experts need to have access to the newest dictionaries to be able to make the changes into the relevant language.