Medical translation

The translation of medical and pharmaceutical texts is one of the branches of the specialized technical-scientifical translation.
To translate this kind of texts, it is necessary to acquire solid knowledge in the medicine, biology or chemistry field. Therefore, generally, these texts are translated by doctors, biologists or chemists having a perfect command in both the source language and the target language. Less frequently, these medical or pharmaceutical translations are done by translators who have studied this field in depth.

The translation of medical texts consists of several phases, like other kinds of translation. The first one would be reading and comprehension of the source text. Next, a terminology and information search is done. The third one would be the translation of the medical text. The last one, a definitive proofreading is done in order to check all the translation difficulties has been overcame, producing a comprehensible text in the target language and having the sense of the source text.

The terminology in this kind of translations is essential since it is necessary to be precise when translating. This is one of the most important difficulties in this kind of texts, therefore, linguistic resources are needed, such as glossaries or specialized monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, in order to find the equivalent term every time. Furthermore, in many cases, an exhaustive search in parallel texts is needed.

There are many specialities in the medical translation, for example, paediatrics, gynaecology, homeopathy, cardiology, etc. In the pharmaceutical translation, for instance, it is necessary a background on medicament composition.
In the medical reports, a specific medical vocabulary is used. It is important not to make any mistakes, having the translator an important responsibility.

Medical translation.