| May 2006 | |
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University of Westminster Article |
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Taking the pain out of translation Susan Eustace reveals how translation can help you to stay healthy around the world Imagine you collapse after a long-haul flight and are taken to hospital, where the medical staff want to put you on a glucose drip. Would you be able to tell them you are diabetic? Would a first-aider know that you were having a seizure, not an asthma attack, if you suffer epilepsy? And if you are on blood-thinning drugs that could prevent clotting if you haemorrhage, how would a doctor or nurse know? There are many advantages to carrying details about your medical conditions in the local language when you travel, and Transmedi has the solution. Your details in your wallet … Transmedi provides a unique service that can speed up diagnosis and prevent patients receiving the wrong treatment due to language barriers. Covering languages for over 100 countries and taking the form of a driving licence-style card, the emergency record lists medical conditions and allergies in English and the language(s) of your choice, reflecting your itinerary. The record enables those travelling abroad – especially independent travellers – to ensure that the staff who are treating them are aware of their current medical conditions or any medical history or allergies that may affect their treatment. … or at the click of a mouse Medical staff can also access the information from a secure webpage, using the two id numbers on a Transmedi access card to log on and retrieve vital medical history in a language they can understand. Finally, translated information relating just to allergies can be sent to your mobile phone before you travel. Transmedi evolved as a specialist arm of my translation business to address widespread concerns about travel and health. With many overseas workers and students coming to Britain, the Transmedi system has benefits here in the UK, too, where it could help ease pressures on British doctors and local authorities. People often ask me why they shouldn’t just use free on-line translation services rather than paying for translations. That is like opening the dictionary and taking the first word – dangerous and not to be recommended because, in the end, the human translator will always need to intervene. The translators we use for translating medical and allergy information are all professionals with experience and expertise in this area. They will often have a medical background and always have a thorough understanding of drugs and/or in-depth knowledge of the technology used in the industry and of how things work. A special kind of translator In terms of tools of their trade, medical translators, like those in other fields, make use of dictionaries – in this case, scientific and medical dictionaries – but are particularly aware of their limitations. A great deal of the terminology used in medicine in certain languages is based on Greek and Latin words, prefixes and suffixes, but in English, we tend in some registers to use Anglo-Saxon terms (such as gut, bowel movement, lung infection or lifespan) rather than their Latin or Greek equivalents (intestine, defecation, pulmonary infection or longevity). Moreover, advances in medical and surgical procedures require the translator to keep up to date with new terminology in both the source and the target language. Translators also need to be knowledgeable about the procedures involved in licensing drugs. While a drug is undergoing experimental and clinical tests prior to approval and launch, it has different names and labels that are important to the manufacturer and official regulatory bodies. The translator has to be aware of these, particularly because prior to licensing, drugs usually have a chemical and a structural name that relies on a code to keep the drug safe from the attentions of commercial rivals. Then, once tested and approved, drugs will also have a generic or non-proprietary name, such as nifedipine, which is recommended for all medical communications. If the manufacturer is successful in patenting the drug, he may then use a proprietary name or registered trade name, such as Procardia™ or Adalat™ in the case of nifedipine. However, pharmacists worldwide hold international drug reference books or have access to online publications and can use this unbiased information to find the content and compounds of any drugs and related substances in clinical use. This means that translation is not required for actual drug names. Read the label Drug manufacturers are also required to use only approved labelling, which sets the tone for the claims that may be made in the literature and package inserts or on labels before a drug is approved for marketing. Translation for labels and inserts could involve up to three translators: one to translate, another to edit and a third to check quality. This, of course, means three sets of translation costs. So-called back-to-back translations are also used. a process in which one translator translates into the target language, a second translates back into the source language and a third edits and checks quality. The process is labour-intensive but guarantees the quality and accuracy required. After all, where medical and pharmaceutical translation is involved, lives are at stake. ________________________________________________________________________ Susan Eustace is Managing Director of The
TransLation Crew and founder of Transmedi, an emergency medical service
providing translations of medical details. E:
susan@translationcrew.com
Translation page editor: E: J.Fraser@westminster.ac.uk |
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