26 Jan Medical jargon in medical translation: balance between simplicity and accuracy

Most healthcare professionals and doctors use medical jargon every day. In simple terms, jargon refers to the specialized terminology used in a specific field. In this case, it applies to medicine, healthcare, and medical translation.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Medical Jargon

Why is medical jargon used if many patients do not understand it? This is a common question in healthcare communication.

The answer is simple: medical jargon improves accuracy. Specialized terminology allows doctors and healthcare professionals to communicate precise information quickly and efficiently. For this reason, medical jargon in medical translation serves an important purpose.

However, problems appear when communication is directed at patients or the general public instead of medical specialists. In these situations, translators and healthcare professionals must find a balance between accuracy and simplicity.

Sometimes, highly technical terms need to be replaced with clearer and more consumer-friendly language. This helps patients better understand diagnoses, treatments, and medical instructions.

The important role of medical translators when dealing with medical jargon

Medical translators face several challenges when working with specialized texts. One of the biggest difficulties is handling medical jargon in medical translation while keeping the message understandable for the target audience.

Before starting a translation, the medical translator must first identify the intended readers. This decision affects terminology choices and the overall style of the translation.

Audience analysis is extremely important. Studies show that many patients struggle to understand even common medical terms such as “lesion” or “ulcer”. In some cases, patients recognize the word but cannot explain its meaning correctly.

The situation becomes even more difficult when English is not the patient’s first language.

To improve understanding, healthcare professionals often use simpler written materials and medical interpreting services. Doctors, interpreters, and translators all share the responsibility of ensuring that patients understand their diagnosis and treatment.

Patients should also feel comfortable asking for clarification whenever necessary.

British or American English

Another challenge in medical translation involves language variation. Medical jargon in medical translation may change depending on whether British English or American English is used.

Some words have different spellings, while others may have completely different meanings. For example, the word “surgery” in British English may refer to a doctor’s office rather than a medical operation.

Medical translators must also understand hospital jargon, which may vary between hospitals, countries, and healthcare professionals. Cultural context is equally important when translating medical content.

Names, Metaphors and Hospital Jargon

This can be very important as regards drug name translation, as sometimes the brand name does not ring a bell in the target language, or is not as well known. In this cases, using the international non-proprietary name as well as the brand name, can make a big difference.

On the other hand, medical translation must deal with more metaphors than one could a priori think. The reasons are that we are in a field where euphemisms are very common, especially in doctor-patient communication.

They are very common in hospital slag, too. Why? Because words as social admission, for example, help hospital staff to deal with terrible human tragedies or unpleasant situations that are part of their job. Using coded words helps the staff putting things in perspective, sometimes marking a needed distance, and gives them a feeling of belonging to the healthcare group.

Eponyms are another challenge as they are synonyms of other or several terms. Choosing the right word depends on which term is more commonly used in the target culture.

As a conclusion, we want to point out that although a balance between simplicity and accuracy is the objective, specially when communication is directed to non-medical specialists, all the terminology issues mentioned in the article show the real difficulties medical professionals and medical translators sometimes have, to honour the balance.

Finding the right balance

Balancing simplicity and accuracy remains one of the biggest challenges in medical translation. This is especially important when communication is directed at non-specialists.

Medical terminology, hospital jargon, metaphors, cultural differences, and language variations all influence the translation process. These challenges show how complex medical translation can be and why professional medical translators play such an essential role in healthcare communication.