What Makes Medical Translation Challenging?

In recent years, international cooperation in the medical field has made it easier for people to get access to healthcare services in international hospitals or those from abroad, which results in a much higher need for medical translation. As a demanding field, translation in medical subjects requires translators with advanced skills as well as specialized knowledge to make a highly accurate translated version. Therefore, to help you understand more about challenging factors and difficulties in dealing with medical translation, GTE Localize would like to provide this article to you.

The Importance of Medical Translation to Your Company’s Success

To begin with, let’s take a look at some reasons why medical translation can bring about the success of your company.

Firstly, medical translation opens the door to reach more international audiences.

Since medical travel is more and more popular these days, there even appears a new definition for this kind of service as “medical tourism” to refer to the people who travel abroad with the aim of obtaining healthcare and medical treatment, which occurs not only in under-developed but also well-developed countries due to three benefits including less wait-time, better medical quality and cheaper price.

According to a report carried out by Grand New Research, global medical tourism tends to grow faster and bigger with the participation of more potential markets. As a result, the need for medical translation can attract a wide range of customers from many countries.

Medical tourism market size in view to 2027.

Secondly, it helps to protect clients’ health when it comes to medical translation.

It is undeniable that a precise medical translation is of vital importance in applying the right medical treatment. In fact, when translating medical communication, not only does the information need to be translated correctly but the context also must be considered delicately to protect clients’ personal life and emotion. A good translator always gives top priority to the rights of clients. To put it another way, it is the responsibility of a medical translator to protect clients’ feelings and health.

Thirdly, costly mistakes can be avoided by a good medical translation.

Medical translated errors can lead to inaccurate diagnoses and its consequences such as misuse of medicine, longer or shorter hospital stay, and other costly and time-consuming results. What is even worse is that mistakes sometimes can not be paid for by anything but the life of the patients. To prevent these undesirable errors, a qualified medical translator with good experience in translation performance must be essential.

Challenges of Medical Translation

With regard to translation in the medical field, there exist some challenges that put people into difficulty. As they are permanent ones, people have no choice but to improve and update themselves in order to succeed in this field.

#1. Medical Technology is Evolving Quickly

The application of modern evolution in medicine is the leading challenge. Every day, there are thousands of new technologies, medicines, equipment as well as other kinds of medical innovations that are developed and manufactured around the world. This process is inevitable as a consequence of the continuous changing of diseases and the desire for increasing life expectancy.

Therefore, medical translators are demanded to be quick at updating the latest advanced medical achievement to understand the medical terminology and specialized documentation.

Besides this, participation in intensive medical training courses at periodic points of time is required for those who want to be considered certified translators.

#2. Medical Translation Contains a Lot of Terminologies

Another difficult problem facing people is medical terminology, which requires medical knowledge at the level of specialists and the translation skills of professionals. Because of the variety of medical specialities and the enormous number of complex scientific names, even bilingual doctors and nurses can not perform well in this role because they normally have trouble looking for understandable words in target languages.

Obviously, it is necessary to hire a medical translator who is both an expert in language skills and a permanent participant in relevant and improving medical training courses. Professionals in the field of medical translation can be a helping hand to avoid common costly mistakes. The accuracy is an utmost requirement in translation performance because it affects lives and deaths.

#3. Different Audiences, Different Language Use

One of the main duties of a medical translator is to translate medical communication into target languages using proper words for four types of normal audiences:

• • Professional: Reporters or Journalists
  • Semi-professional: Doctors
  • Non-professional: Medical Students or Nurses
  • Patients

In other words, the translated version needs to be accurate and focus on target audiences at the same time. For instance, medical translators understand that “Varicella” is the medical term for the common disease “Chicken Pox” and they know to flexibly use these words in specific communicative situations.

#4. Local Laws are Different

As the medical regulations of each country are different, it’s important to understand the law on medical examination and treatment of the target countries. These legal differences directly affect healthcare systems and other related factors.

With the help of a medical translator, the risk involving legal aspects can be reduced to the absolute minimum in the current market’s languages. A wide and deep understanding of the local medical industry and policies is a necessary preparation that forms a strong base for your success.

How to get High-quality Medical Translation?

For all of the direct challenges above, the role of a high-quality medical translation provided by a qualified translator team can not only make sure of accuracy but also set a new standard for your company. Knowing for a fact that working with professionals is always at the request of clients, GTE Localize along with our being here to provide you with the best translators in medical translation and localization services in the medical field.

We keep in our mind the firm commitment to the high standards for medical translation services, which has been proved through our qualifications, experience, translation samples, and project lists. Should you need a reliable supporter to accompany your journey to the local market, GTE Localize would like to be of service!

Contact us to launch your journey right now!