Chapter 16 Translators in medical and health settings

Abstract

While health and illness are often perceived primarily in biomedical terms,they are situated in the realm of personal experience and embedded in specific lan-guages, cultures and societies, making medical and health translation a complex andrich field, where ethnic, professional and disciplinary cultures converge and presentmyriad challenges. In this chapter we discuss a number of specific features that char-acterize medical and health translation, and make it a well-defined professional activ-ity and academic speciality. We consider current trends in biomedical research,clinical practice, society and technology, such as personalized medicine, translationalmedicine,patient-centredcare,globalhealth, e-health, or the growth of machinetranslation and artificial intelligence. We argue that these drivers of change have thepotential to transform radically the landscape of the professions and social practicesinvolved and, consequently, of education and research. We look at some of the profes-sional challenges, educational gaps and opportunities for research and innovation. Fi-nally, we conclude that translation can contribute a great deal to the improvement ofmultilingual and multicultural communication in biomedical, healthcare and globalhealth contexts. In the current era of increasing automation, humanizing such com-munication is undoubtedly more important than ever.