Medical Translation: bridges the gap to vital information

Coming from different regions of the world, having diverse cultural backgrounds, and speaking various languages, does not mean that we do not fight the same diseases and experience similar health issues. Medical translations serve, therefore, a vital and noble purpose by making medicine-related knowledge, discoveries, and research findings accessible to you and everyone else to ease our collective pain.

After hours upon hours of extensive research, we gathered all you need to know about medical translation and its massive impacts on our life.

What is medical translation?

Medical translation is mainly concerned with field-specific terminology, and special medical language, it is the profession of translating documents related to the healthcare industry such as:

• Aggregate reports
• Healthcare brochures
• Clinical study reports
• Doctor letters
• Medical protocols (IB, ICD, CRF & others)
• Medical agreements
• Monitoring reports
• Medical manuscripts and publications.

Medical Translation and Human Life

It is a clear fact that medical research about diseases, new drugs, vaccines, and medical equipment is the main reason we still exist and enjoy life as we do. Doctors across the globe join hands to stay updated, develop and provide new healthcare products to cure life-threatening diseases, and ease the suffering of a lot of people. Translation is the hero of our story, it is the bridge that allows for an effective exchange of knowledge and research findings between scientists of different cultural backgrounds, it collects different pieces of the puzzle and facilitates the process of finding life-saving answers.

Case study

The significant importance of translation was clearly depicted in managing the COVID-19 crisis. Scientists all over the world were racing to discover the vaccine to stop the rapidly increasing death toll, by putting translation in use. Key content and research findings in various languages were shared with the rest of the world, and R&D found answers to essential questions about COVID-19.  Through translation, a disaster was averted.

Patient-physician communication

“Medicine is an art whose magic and creative ability have long been recognized as residing in the interpersonal aspects of the patient-physician relationship.”

John A. Hall, the James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology at McGill University.

A therapeutic patient-physician relationship that is built upon active, effective, and compassionate communication is highly regarded as the heart and art of medicine. Owing to the pivotal role it plays in delivering high-quality health care through conducting patient-centered conversations, making medical decisions, and providing the necessary treatment. On this account, providing proper communication in a foreigner’s native language is crucial for the quality and efficiency of the treatment. Medical translation, hence, has a primary role in the provision of necessary treatments to patients who speak a foreign language.

It is also worth mentioning that one single mistake in translating a medical text can lead to serious ramifications affecting the lives of patients severely, which brings us to the importance of using human translation over machine translation. Human translators can fathom the nuances of both the target and source language as they are familiar with medical terms, expressions, and different cultural references which highly facilitates communicating with foreign patients, leading to an accurate diagnosis and providing the right treatment.

Countless people across the globe seek medical care on daily basis, medical translation serves a vital purpose in achieving mutual understanding of health issues between patients and health professionals who speak different languages, and also, it eases the dissemination of knowledge in the medical field.