Crossing between medical translation and medical writing
Medical translation and medical writing share skills, and practitioners cross between them in both directions: translators take up writing and writers add translation. The two directions differ in who crosses, how late and why, and in what the move asks, and an established translation practice can widen into the services next to translation, writing among them.
Skills the two trades share
In one medical translator's view, the top three skills of a good medical translator who also writes are probably solid research skills, excellent writing skills and knowing the audience, and each overlaps with a medical writer's skills. All five colleagues she had interviewed also named research skills, and knowing the audience matters because writing for a patient is one thing and writing for a medical professional another. One translator who also writes very often needs to do a lot of research on the topic she is writing or translating.
A practitioner from an organisation that did not work closely with medical translation added a fourth skill, which that organisation very often needed in 2024: rewriting a larger document so that it becomes shorter, such as a small summary of a longer protocol synopsis. For this work it is important to be able to analyse which information is essential and to make the text short and understandable, with the target audience kept in mind.
Who crosses, in which direction and how late
It is not rare to find medical writers who also translate and medical translators who are also skilled writers, and moving from either trade into the other is one of the many opportunities writers and translators may encounter in their careers.
A survey reported in 2019, distributed through social media and to medical writing and translation associations across Europe, drew 16 responses from professionals who had crossed between the two trades, a sample that may not represent a larger population. Ten were translators who had branched into medical writing and six were medical writers who had branched into translation. Most still spent much of their time on their first trade: eight of the ten translators spent at least half their time on translation, and five of the six writers spent at least 80% of their time on medical writing. Translators began offering writing after an average of 10.2 years in translation, with a range of 1 to 32 years, whereas writers began offering translation much earlier, on average within 2 years of starting their careers, with a range of 0 to 5 years.
Of the ten translators, nine had a scientific background and half held a university degree in translation, while two had no formal training, two had attended workshops and one had earned a certification at a translation institute. All six writers had a scientific background, and four had no training in translation.
The motives differed by direction. Translators seemed to branch into writing mainly out of personal interest and for a job opportunity, better pay and job security, whereas writers seemed to branch into translation following a client's request or to increase their income.
Moving from translation into writing
One medical translator who became a medical writer graduated in translation and interpreting and chose medicine as her field, and in the years after graduating she attended many workshops and seminars on translation, writing and medicine. Her first professional assignment, at a European cancer research organisation, was liaising with the international experts involved in revising clinical research protocols. After a couple of years she was administering the organisation's protocol review committee and its new drugs development committee and contributing to the collaborative writing of protocols. Her first medical writing project was preparing the reports of the protocol review committee, which met every three months to review and approve the development plans for new clinical trials in oncology. The reports were challenging at first, because she needed to become acquainted with oncology to understand and report the discussions properly. With time her confidence grew, and over the years she covered many different types of scientific and board meetings as a medical writer.
She spent the first ten years of her career in non-profit research organisations without knowing that there was something called medical writing, and realised that this was what she had been doing only when she decided to become a freelancer. She then joined EMWA at once, and as a freelancer her clients grew to include pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
Her advice to a translator switching into writing is to keep an eye on new regulations worldwide: for translating it is often enough to know the regulations related to the source and target languages, but writing requires a broader view of the regulatory world. She also holds that networking with medical writing colleagues and investing in professional medical writing training are extremely important, so that joining EMWA is a must.
In the view of a medical writer who added translation, it is possible for a medical translator to become a medical writer given a scientific background by training or enough years of work in the scientific or medical field. An analytical mind, attention to detail and strong writing skills might be sufficient for the transition. In her view, someone who understands the basics of scientific writing can write any kind of document. She thinks this is especially true of regulatory documents, which are rigidly structured, and less true of medical communication documents, which could be more challenging since they require a more creative or strategic approach.
Moving from writing into translation
After some years at a medical writing consultancy and a pharmaceutical company, one medical writer turned freelance and considered what other services she could offer. Because she speaks three languages, translation came to mind. She is confident translating between Italian and English and from French into English, but not into French, because she considers English but not French a second native language. She does not expect translation to be a big part of her workload.
In her account, language skills are essential for branching into translation, and it does not matter whether they were acquired at school or through life experience; knowledge of technical terms is also essential. Scientific texts, she notes, are written in a relatively simple manner, in short sentences that come to the point, which she believes makes the translator's work easier: translating them is not easy, but it is definitely easier than translating something literary. Overall, someone who masters a set of languages, has a scientific background and enjoys the challenge of translating faithfully and accurately is, in her view, set to go. Her advice to a writer who feels secure in their language skills and enjoys translating is to give it a try. A small dose of confidence does not hurt, and everyone goes through some sort of natural selection at work, so if medical translation is not the right path it soon becomes evident.
For a medical doctor working as a freelance medical writer and translator, going from medical writing to translation or the other way is not a one-way street but an avenue. She graduated from medical school in Argentina and then studied and worked in medical research in the United States for 13 years. As a clinical trials coordinator she often acted as an interpreter for patients at a research centre in Florida. Later, as project coordinator of a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, she wrote or helped write a large number of study documents and translated several aimed at Spanish-speaking patients and caregivers. Her first translation task was to proofread and edit a document that had already been translated, which is quite different from translating from scratch.
How a person becomes comfortable shifting between languages differs, in her account, with where they live. For someone living in a foreign country, translating is part of daily life, because immigrants may talk, read and write at least in their native tongue and in the language of the country. In Europe it is quite common to shift among three or more languages when talking with a group of friends or colleagues. Someone living in their native country has to immerse themselves in the non-native language, for example by watching films, reading books and doing any activity that requires it. Either way, the basis is mental openness and a desire to learn and communicate with others.
As a freelance medical writer in Europe she does some translation and editing. She finds translation skills a great complement to medical writing, especially because the trade frequently involves working with professionals of all nationalities, and for freelancers in particular because they diversify the services on offer.
Services next to translation
According to a project manager at a medical translation agency, popular areas for someone new to the field to look for work include the services usually associated with translation: interpreting; regulatory labelling; audio and video work such as creating and translating subtitles or on-screen text; machine translation post-editing with additional proofreading; and software localisation, since many clients want their websites translated.
Medical writing is on the same list, in the form of rewriting a client's source files. At the agency it was not yet popular in 2024, but interest was rising, because source files often arrive in a very poor state, leaving translators with many questions and sometimes confused about what the text says. A translator who notices that a text is of bad quality may actively ask whether they can rewrite it. International medical search engine optimisation covers, for example, translating keywords, or translating or writing a medical text for a website with those keywords. The list ends with braille and readability testing and with adjustments for the medical device regulation.
One German medical translator with a well-established translation business widened it into certification, interpreting, teaching and medical writing. To offer her clients additional value, she applied to the higher regional court for authorisation to certify translations, an official procedure common in Germany that grants the applicant the right to certify translations needed for official and legal purposes. She is now publicly appointed and sworn in by a Bavarian court. The translations she has certified include certificates of pharmaceutical products and summaries of product characteristics for importing medicinal products into countries in the Middle East, a licence to practise dental medicine for a dentist emigrating to Dubai, and a scientific opinion issued by the European Commission on the safety of breast implants for a lawsuit in Germany.
Being a sworn translator unlocks further work. In one case a client explicitly requested a sworn translator to assist communication during an FDA inspection at a clinical site. Her tasks were to interpret the inspectors' interactions with the investigator and to read entries in medical files and convert them from German into English for the inspectors, so that they could verify data submitted for a New Drug Application against source. Her earlier work as a clinical research associate and her familiarity with patient files proved invaluable for this job. In specific settings she also offers liaison interpreting, the oral transfer of short spoken passages, and these settings include inspections by supervisory or regulatory authorities and local ethics committee meetings where sponsors who do not speak German defend their clinical trials.
Foreign language teaching is another area translators may consider. She has taught German and English as a foreign language to healthcare professionals and led medical translation workshops, and although teaching is enjoyable, the preparation it requires can be time-consuming.
Medical writing should not be underestimated as a source of a whole range of opportunities for translators. At a medical translation workshop she met an experienced EMWA workshop leader, who explained that translators could benefit from the association's professional development programme and encouraged her to become a member. She then completed a foundation certificate in medical writing and secured her first freelance medical writing jobs. More recently her work has placed more emphasis on medical writing and even on monitoring clinical trials, and the work never stops changing. In her account, medical translation, far from being a dead end, gave her a solid basis for taking on many new roles.