MEDICAL TRANSLATION

  • Books: specialized books, textbooks
  • Medical journal articles
  • Articles to be published in medical journals
  • Documentation for regulatory agencies
  • Medical devices (medical, surgical, orthopaedic, dental and for in vitro diagnosis): user manuals, description of technical characteristics, marketing and training material
  • Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)
  • Teaching material: e-learning
  • Promotional material: brochures, catalogues
  • Medical records, clinical reports, discharges, accident reports
  • Transcreation

PHARMACEUTICAL TRANSLATION

  • Clinical studies (from protocols to final reports)
  • Expert reports on new drug indications
  • Regulatory documents for health authorities
  • Pharmaceutical technology
  • Manuals for research laboratories
  • Laboratory Safety Manual

TRANSLATION OF REGULATORY DOCUMENTS

I am an expert in the European Union regulation on medicines (EMA) and its application by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS), so I use their specific and mandatory terminology in all my translations of documents for the regulatory authorities:

  • Clinical Study Protocols
  • Summaries of product characteristics (SmPCs)
  • Informed consent forms (ICF)
  • Case Report Forms (CRFs)
  • Serious Adverse Event & Suspected Unexpected Serious Adverse
  • Reaction Forms (SAE/SUSAR) (CIOMS-1 form)
  • Forms for notification of cases of notifiable diseases
  • SOAP notes (Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan notes for patient’s charts)
  • Product labelling
  • Patient information leaflets or package inserts (PILs, PIs)

MULTIMEDIA TRANSLATION

Medical documentaries
Promotional videos
Continuing Medical Education videos

  • Dubbing
  • Voice-over
  • Subtitling
  • Subtitling for the Deaf
  • Audio description for the Blind

EDITING AND PROOFREADING OF MEDICAL AND PHARMACEUTICAL TEXTS

Types of editing I offer:

COPY-EDITING – The text is checked for errors or inaccuracies in wording, grammatical errors, syntactic inconsistencies (concordance, correlation of verb tenses, prepositions, etc.) or punctuation errors and for the need to restructure the exposition so that the text is more fluent, sounds natural in its language and its message is clearer and more effective.

PROOFREADING – The text is checked for spelling and punctuation errors, if the typography is appropriate to the text, if international standards for writing numbers, mathematical signs and units of measurement are met, if the cross-references are correct.

CONTENT – The text is checked for errors of concept and vocabulary and adapted to the needs of the user to the country of destination. In my case, I am supported by my extensive medical training, my 33-year experience as a medical translator and my more than 20 years of experience as a proofreader specialized in medical and pharmaceutical texts.

POST-DTP QA – After completing the DTP phase (desktop publishing & formatting), the text is submitted to a quality assurance check (final proofreading, adjustments to text and layout).

TRANSLATION REVIEWS – The text in the target language is compared to the text in the source language, in order to check fidelity to the original and use of correct terminology, to detect omission or addition of text, etc.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

MEDICAL WRITING

I write texts aimed at both specialized professionals, patients, caregivers and the general public:

  • Scientific articles for national and international medical journals
  • Web content optimized for a good position in search engines (SEO): medical or health-related content for medical portals, websites and blogs
  • Medical or health-related contents for informative or educative brochures addressed to patients, caretakers and the general public
  • Contents for training materials for medical visitors
  • Contents for continuing education courses for physicians
  • Contents for support materials for oral presentations
  • Preparation of regulatory documentation for clinical trials
  • Writing of articles from congresses and clinical meetings

LINGUISTIC VALIDATION OF PRO MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS

I have coordinated the linguistic validation from English to Spanish of more than 150 health-related Patient Reported Outcomes
questionnaires.

I carry out all the phases of the linguistic validation of PRO questionnaires:

  • Recruitment and coordination of a team of forward and backward translators
  • Forward translations with cultural adaptation
  • Revision of forward translations, and creation of a reconciled version
  • Backward translation of the reconciled version
  • Revision of the backward translation and creation of a draft version
  • Medical review of the draft version (on my own if requested since I am a physician) or discussion of expert clinicians’ reviews
  • Cognitive debriefings or Focus group of patients or healthy volunteers
  • Elaboration of detailed reports on the cognitive interview or focus group results
  • Production, proofreading and layout checking of the final version
    Translation and review of screenshots for e-PROs

COVERAGE OF MEDICAL CONFERENCES AND CLINICAL MEETINGS

I attend medical conferences and clinical meetings aiming to write:

  • Medical articles for medical portals
  • Press releases for web pages
  • Interviews with speakers and experts
  • Reports for medical societies

SPECIALIZED TEACHING

I have been giving courses, seminars and workshops on medical translation, both in person and online, since 2004. These are some of the courses taught:

  • Medical Translation. Seminars on medical translation addressed to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-year students of the Bachelor´s Degree in Translation and Interpreting School. Estema University Center, Paterna-Valencia, Spain. Instructor. 2004.
  • Medical Translation. Seminars on medical translation addressed to 4th and 5th-year students of the Bachelor´s Degree in Translation and Interpreting. Estema University Center, Paterna-Valencia, Spain. Instructor. 2004.
  • Translation of Medical Texts. Optional course for 5th-year students of the Bachelor´s Degree in Translation and Interpreting School. Estema University Center, Paterna-Valencia, Spain. Associate professor and coordinator. 2005.
  • Biomedical translation. Seminar included in the Master’s degree in Specialized Translation. Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain. Invited professor. 2017.
  • Mandatory use terminology in the pharmaceutical industry. Online course. AulaSIC. Instructor. Six editions since 2018.
  • Medical translation. Online course included in the ‘Master’s degree on Specialization in Medical Translation’. AulaSIC. Instructor. Six editions since 2019.
  • Translation of medical devices. Online course. AulaSIC. Instructor. Two editions since 2020.
  • Translation for the Pharmaceutical Industry – Mandatory resources. 8th Course on Medical Translation. Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP). Santander, Spain. Instructor. 2020.
  • Translation and Linguistic validation of medical questionnaires. 8th Course on Medical Translation. Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP). Santander, Spain. Instructor. 2020.
  • The MedDRA for medical translators: usefulness and use explained step by step. Ciberseminario Tremédica. Instructor. 2020.

LINGUISTIC CONSULTING

  • Linguistic and cultural review
  • Cultural adaptation to local market
  • Revising of existing content
  • Multilingual terminology management

PRESENTATIONS

1986 «Hidatidosis en la infancia: revisión de 52 casos». 6th Meeting of the Sociedad Española de Hidatidología. April 10, 1986. Valladolid, Spain.

2007 «Medical devices: ¿dispositivos médicos o productos sanitarios? Traducción según la normativa española«. II Jornadas Científicas y Profesionales de TREMÉDICA at the I International Conference on language and Health Care. October 26, 2007. Alicante, Spain.

Linguistic Validation of the Translation of patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) Instruments”. 26th European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) Conference. May 1, 2008. Barcelona, Spain.

2008 Medical devices: Terminology and EN-ES translation”. III Jornadas Científicas y Profesionales de TREMÉDICA. November 8, 2008. Salamanca, Spain.

2017 “Translation, editing and review of medical texts”. Roundtable. Red Vértice meeting, September 16, 2017. Barcelona, Spain.

2017 “Professional associations”. Mesa redonda. Jornadas culturales del grado en Traducción e Interpretación en conmemoración del Día del Traductor, Universidad de Alicante. October 5, 2017. Alicante, Spain.

2018 “What’s so interesting about Medical translation and why is Tremedica interesting?”. AETI and the Department of Translation and Interpreting, University of Murcia. October 17, 2018. Murcia, Spain

2020 “Medical writers: a logical diversification of the activity of medical translators? Tremédica Colloquiums. 2020, March 30