Last week, I translated a medical report discussing a patient’s impairment and treatment after a stroke. Consequently, I learned about the NIH Stroke Scale. Reviewing the scale helped me choose the best terminology for the project.

It also helped me with future projects. How do I know? Can I predict the future? No, I can’t.

​However, terms like ataxia, dysarthria, and palsy are frequently used in neurological assessments. Since I understood them in the context of a stroke for last week’s translation, I now have a more clear grasp of their meaning, which will be useful when I see these terms again in French reports. This will, more than likely, aid my comprehension of other medical condition.

In short, this project represented a minute, but valuable degree of growth in my work as a translator. How has your work grown lately?

To learn more about the NIH Stroke Scale, follow this link: https://www.mdcalc.com/nih-stroke-scale-score-nihs

While my specialization is medical science, that is a broad term and it often overlaps with topics like hospital management, ethics, and statistics.

As a result, when I do French to English translations, I work most efficiently on documents discussing cancer, leukemia, skin disorders, and similar areas. Inevitably, though, one of those disorders becomes the subject of, say, how a hospital approaches its management (e.g. referring departments, multidisciplinary meetings). As I learned last week, I must take extra care and time with my work when this occurs.

​For example, last week, the subject was social support in palliative care management of cancer patients. At first, I thought, "Piece of cake! No difficult terms, biological explanations, or chemical processes to translate." The latter was true, but the “easy” part turned out to be a poor assumption on my part.

​Right away, I had to learn the difference between palliative and hospice care to ensure I was using the correct terminology. I found the French definition from WHO to be quite useful, “Les soins palliatifs améliorent la qualité de vie des patients qui sont confrontés à une maladie engageant le pronostic vital, ainsi que celle de leurs familles. Les moyens utilisés consistent à prévenir et atténuer la souffrance en intervenant précocement pour identifier, évaluer et traiter la douleur et les autres souffrances physiques, psychosociales et spirituelles.” (https://www.who.int/ncds/management/palliative-care/introduction/fr/).

Last week, I translated about the upsides and downsides of using DPP-4 inhibitors (gliptins) and SGLT2 inhibitors (gliflozins) in T2D treatment. This was interesting to me because I do not have personal or indirect experience with diabetes, and, consequently, my understanding of its treatment is limited. In fact, before becoming a medical science translator, I thought insulin was the only way to treat it. Over the last five years, my research has enlightened me on the topic of oral antidiabetic agents.

​As is the case with most drugs, physicians have to choose what drugs and drug classes to prescribe based on the patient’s profile. If the patient has certain pre-existing conditions, a treatment may aggravate it. Patient age and biological markers come into play, too.

So, according to my research and the documents I translated, gliptins and glifozins have certain advantages over sulfonamides in T2D treatment. Each class functions via different mechanisms of action, thus offering different advantages and disadvantages (impact on weight, durability, use in elderly/fragile patients, etc.). However, they do come with risks that practitioners must be aware of and anticipate when the treatment is introduced.
 
With French medical science research covering a vast array of medicines, including these, I know my translation work will always keep me on my toes.