Medical translation involves the translation of regulatory, clinical, technical, training, software or marketing documents relating to health care, medical equipment or pharmaceutical areas. Essentially, the majority of countries require any documents relating to these areas to be translated into their native language or languages.
In addition, it is often necessary for documents relating to clinical trials, patient information or documents required to undertake particular examinations or surgery to take place (Informed Consent forms) to be translated so a patient or his representatives are able to read and understand them.
Naturally, translating a medical document from one language into another requires a knowledge and understanding of medical terms. Without this, costly, or even fatal mistakes could be made.
A simple example of this would be the term ‘replacement dose’ in a pharmaceutical document. A translator will have to be aware that this term should under no circumstances be translated as ‘additional dose’, as the meaning is very different and could ultimately lead a patient to overdose.
Translations for clinical trials also have to be word perfect, as errors can lead to hold-ups, over-running of costs or, in the worst case scenario, even accusations of malpractice and liability lawsuits.
Doctors often use non-medical descriptive terms in patient information documents or Informed Consent forms to make it easier for patients to understand the documents.
Translators have to ensure they use the right terms in their translations – the phrase ‘high blood pressure’, for instance, should not be changed to ‘hypertension’ in the translation, as this term may be of little meaning to the patient.
It is equally important not to lose the meaning of certain legal phrases, or exchange important first person statements with second person terms within the translation of any Informed Consent forms.
A major error in the operating instructions for medical equipment may lead to malfunctions or even cause an injury to the operator or a patient – the consequences could be extremely costly.
Because it is so vitally important to get medical translations absolutely right, it is best to employ professional translation services for the task. These services have the necessary linguistic skills and knowledge of medical terms to ensure every document they translate will be exactly how it should appear.
More often than not, medical translation services will specialize in a particular range of languages. By concentrating on a specific range, they ensure that all translations will be as perfect as they have to be.
We, for instance, specialize in the translation of medical documents from English into 12 major Indian languages, including:
- Bengali
- Gujarati
- Hindi
- Kannada
- Malayalam
- Marathi
- Nepali
- Oriya
- Punjabi
- Tamil
- Telegu
- Urdu
The documents we translate include, for example:
- Informed Consent forms
- Patient information documents
- Medical questionnaires
- Medical terminology glossaries
- Toxicological, clinical, biological and pharmacological documents
- Instruction manuals
- Software descriptions
- Packaging labels
- Brochures
By taking advantage of our services, you will have the assurance that each and every one of your documents will be translated word perfect and up to the highest possible standards. contact www.indianscripts.com for medical translation
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