Accuracy is Vital in Medical Document Translation

It doesn’t take too much imagination to appreciate what could happen if medical documents or information is not translated correctly. The potential for this to happen is because we all live in an increasingly globalised world where people are moving from one country to another to travel, live and work more than ever. Not only that, but many pharmaceuticals and drugs are manufactured in one country and distributed all over the world. Medical instruments are bought and used wherever clinics and hospitals exist and very often these can only be used properly as long as instructions are translated accurately. The list of reasons why accuracy is so vital in medical document translation goes on and on.

It is always important to choose a translation service provider carefully and make sure that they have experience in the type of translation work that you want completed. However, there are a lot of generalist translation companies that may not have the expertise to translate medical documents or legal documents accurately. Both legal document translation services and medical document translation services need to be provided by experts in both the linguistic field as well as the legal or medical field as well. 

Medical document translators are specialised as they will need to be fluent in at least one other language other than English as well as have sufficient medical knowledge or knowledge of medical terminology in order to not make mistakes when translating what is required. The professional medical translator is likely to be in high demand and it is an exacting job as the translator will probably have to spend considerable time researching the subject matter, especially if it is a medical manual or instructions for a specific medical technique.

When choosing a suitable translation service provider it would be best to check out the larger companies first as they are more likely to employ a team of specialised translators, whereas an individual freelance is more likely to be a generalist. This is fine for relatively simple documents like birth and marriage certificate translations, but is not sufficient for medical document translations here accuracy and in depth knowledge is so much more critical.