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My friendship circle is far removed from my professional circle, so my job as a translator is quite obscure in social situations. I even get a twinge of anxiety when someone asks me, “What do you do for a living?” as a way of making small talk. I say, as plainly as possible, no technical jargon, “I am a translator. I translate French medical documents into English.” But, that simple statement is full of landmines waiting to explode and create confusion. First, most people picture an interpreter (in-person, oral translation) when they hear translator (at-home, written translation). Second, those who understand that distinction imagine that I must be translating books and legal documents (the two most “famous” types of translation), even though I said medical documents. They cannot grasp why or what medical documents would need to be translated. That is why I am writing a short series of posts called What Medical Translation Entails. I dedicate this series to anyone who says “you do what?” when I tell them what I do for a living.  Translation for pharmacovigilanceTo start, take a moment and note that pharmaceutical companies and drugs are international. For example, furosemide (the INN) is manufactured worldwide by Pfizer, Sanofi, Mylan, and many others under different brand names. French, German, Tunisian, Italian patients take furosemide to treat edema and hypertension. Occasionally, a drug induces a serious adverse event (bad side effect) that must be reported in a database. Such databases are used for pharmacovigilance regulation and reporting. As I explain on my services page, pharmacovigilance concerns “the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems.” By way of example, if 50 patients in France experience an adverse event, followed by 25 in Italy and Tunisia, the drug that caused it will be investigated so that future problems can be prevented. Now, think about the paper work/documentation, and notice that, since drugs are international, they are going to be in different languages. Therefore, for English-speaking practitioners and institutions to read them, they must be translated. That’s when I step in…Well, the translation agency does. The drug manufacturer (for example, Pfizer, Roche, Merck) whose drug is being investigated will contact a translation agency with the documents they need translated (pharmacovigilance reports and any documentation associated with them), then that agency contacts me.
Therefore, in this context, my translation services help pharmaceutical companies improve their medicine and contribute to the prevention of serious side effects. See? It's clear as mud now what I do for a living, right? Comments are closed.
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