How Does Professional Medical Translation Save Lives?
By: Eric Nelson Posted on Mon, 09-10-2023
Suppose you are on a foreign official tour, and you fall ill. You need to visit the doctor, but you don’t understand their language. What will you do? You will take the assistance of medical translation services. These services will mitigate the communication barrier between you and the healthcare service provider. You can tell the doctor about your ailment in a better way and in return can diagnose your disease properly. Some people are hesitant to visit the doctor. It is a dangerous situation because in many cases any ailment can be prolonged and sometimes become fatal. Due to digitalization, you can have easy access to medical translation services and can lead a healthy life. In this article, we are going to discuss how accurate and professional medical translation saves the lives of humans.
What are Medical Translation Services?
Because of research and development, the medical field keeps on evolving. Therefore, it is essential to keep yourself updated with medical updates. Medical translation involves the translation of technical, clinical, and regulatory documents. Moreover, it also involves the translation of medical research papers and marketing documents for medical devices.
In many countries, people want all the medical content to be translated into their national language so that doctors can understand the diagnosis and provide the medication accordingly. On the other hand, patients can understand the prescribed medicines and doses given by doctors. Each country wants its population to be healthy. Healthy people can play a positive role in a country’s growth.
All the developed countries of the world are spending a large amount of money on medical sciences. All the innovations in medical sciences are used in developed countries first, and then they are used in developing countries. They can use all the modern treatments in their country with the help of medical translation services. It is a very critical type of translation. A slight error in medical translation can cause the death of a person.
How Translation of Different Medical Documents Save Lives
The medical field has its unique terminology that cannot be understood by laymen. Therefore, to get seamless medical translation services, many companies hire a reliable translation agency. Medical translation agencies have a team of subject-matter experts who have prior experience in the field. Therefore, they provide you with seamless medical translation services. Let’s have a look at the types of medical documents that require translation.
Patient Information Form
It is the most significant form that is used in medical practices. It contains all the required information about the health of the patient. The global hospitals of the world put the data of the customer into the electronic health record EHR. This form is given to the patient by the front desk officer before giving the appointment with the doctor. This form contains information like the patient’s name, and contact information and the most important part is medical history. The patient can fill this form accurately if it is provided to the patients in the language that they understand. The information holds great significance in getting the best healthcare services.
Old people suffer from different ailments. They should be given medicines with utmost care so that medicine related to one ailment cannot be harmful to another ailment. Moreover, for serious surgeries, doctors must know the history of the patient. For instance, if a patient is diabetic, then his or her operation scars take time to heal. If this form is provided to the patient and the doctor in the language that they understand, then doctors can provide the best healthcare services to patients and can save many lives.
Rights and Responsibility Forms
This form is a short document. It includes the rights of the patients they should be treated with courtesy and respect, and they have a right to ask questions. Moreover, they have to provide answers faithfully. One important thing to note is that one of the rights indicates that medical interpreters should be available for medical care services without bearing the cost on a patient. The medical care centers should place this form on their counter. It should be translated into the language that the customer understands. If customers know about her rights, then they can avail themselves of medical health services in a better way. If the medical center is not providing them with the facility of an interpreter, they can ask for it.
Consent and Assent Forms
Certain diseases are very lethal. While treating such a disease, a patient’s death is probable. For this reason, the medical staff takes permission from the patient’s family for the treatment. They have to sign a consent form. In this consent form, they can either give permission or they can refuse the treatment. For instance, when putting the patient on a ventilator, doctors take permission from the patient’s family. These consent and assent forms should be provided to the patient’s family in their native language. According to corporate policy and law, these forms should be documented. Some of the consent and assent forms are
- Consent to treat
- Consent to procedure
- Consent to Vaccine
- Document for information
If patients are unaware of the content in the forms, then taking consent is of no use. Therefore, medical health care should get these forms translated so that patients’ families can make rational decisions to save the lives of their loved ones.
Instructions for the Patient
The patients need to follow some instructions before visiting the doctor. For a Gynae ultrasound, females have to prepare themselves. Some are the case with endoscopy and colonoscopy. They can prepare themselves if instructions are translated into a language that patients can understand.
If the doctor is treating the accident or sports injury, then he needs to tell the patient about physical therapy. In this case, the patient wants all the instructions in the translated form so that they can follow the physical therapy instructions effectively.
Missed Appointment Policy
Time is money. Doctors don’t like the cancellation of appointments and no-shows. They give you appointments from their tough schedules. Many patients are in queues to make appointments, and you are the lucky one to get an appointment on time. If the patient doesn’t appear at the appointment, the doctor will lose money. To deal with missing appointments, many healthcare service providers came up with the missed appointment policy.
The American Medical Association states that it is ethical for health sciences to charge patients for not appearing at appointments, and the patient should be aware of this policy. For this, you must provide a translated version of the policy to the patients. In this way, they will not be careless regarding their health and will not miss their medical appointments.
Translation of Medical Research
Lots of medical research has been done in the medical field for years. No doubt that technological advancement has made our lives easy, however, it has also increased the number of ailments. To fight these ailments, medical researchers are working to come up with new medicines. With the introduction of new medicines, prior medicines were banned. To understand new treatments and medicines, it is essential to get medical research translated into multiple languages.Â
Developing countries are still using medicines that are banned in developed countries. Moreover, in developing countries, you can get any medicine without a prescription. This is an alarming situation. Therefore, developed countries need to share their medical research with developing countries in translated versions to save precious human lives.
Questionnaires Filled by the Patients and the Progress Notes
This is the only thing that you don’t need to get translated. For filling out the questionnaire, you can jot down the answers given by the patient with the help of an interpreter. While you are conducting an interview with the patient, the interpreter will disseminate the information between you and the patient in the English language and in the language that the patient understands. As an interviewer, your task is to write down the information in the English language.
In the case of progress reports, the case can become more difficult. For instance, if your patient is presenting progress notes from Sweden, and they are written in Swedish handwriting. This information is of great importance. For this, you must translate them from Swedish to English. Handwriting is another language that is difficult to read, and it is even more difficult to read if it is written by a doctor or a nurse in the Swedish language.
In such cases, you must scan the progress reports, convert them to PDF, and send them to a reliable translation agency to get them accurately translated. The translation agency will provide you with a translation document that is easy to read and understand.Â
Wrapping Up
Professional medical translation saves the lives of people by playing a significant role. With the help of these translation services, patients can know their rights. On the other hand, it helps doctors and patients to understand their ailments and act on prescribed medication. You must hire a professional translation agency to get seamless medical translation services.
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