3 Challenges Related To Medical Translation
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- Providing medical translation services can be challenging when equivalents to scientific and health-related terms don’t exist in other languages.
- These issues are inevitable when creating accurate translations across languages.
- Being a translator in the medical industry demands a deep understanding of relevant vocabulary in two or more languages.
- Even someone with a sophisticated medical background may not be adequately fluent in the terminology specific to the field of oncology, especially in another language.
- A good medical translator should have the following 3 capabilities:
- 1. Comprehensive knowledge and reasoning ability in the medical topic being translated
- 2. The ability to read and understand the source language competently so that he/she understands the intended meaning of a particular text
- 3. The ability to accurately express the meaning of the translation in the target language
- What are the challenges associated with medical translation?
- There are 3 main challenges related to medical translation:
- 1. Medical Translation Comprehension
- Issues may arise if a medical translator uses complex terms and language which can be understood only by those in the specific field of medicine rather than the target patient population.
- For instance, varicella is the English medical term for chicken pox, but there’s a good chance a patient would not be familiar with this term.
- As a result, when translating documents into English for medical professionals, a translator should use the term “Varicella”, But use “chicken pox” in a document intended for patients.
- 2. Translating Drug Names
- Translating drug names is an especially difficult task in the field of medical translation, as every year government agencies such as the FDA approve a new list of drugs that can be sold within the U.S.
- As more drugs receive the green light to be marketed, medical translators have the challenge of translating and localizing drug names that often have no equivalent in the target languages.
- 3. Cultural Context
- Medical translators have to take cultural context into account. otherwise the meaning of the words they are trying to translate can easily be misconstrued.
- For instance, the word “surgery” in American English means a medical procedure. However, “surgery” in British English refers instead to the office hours of a doctor.
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