Setting - Infrastructure
Through a combination of osmosis and conscious effort, each Lingua Medica product draws heavily on its extensive wealth of local resources. These extend across all the specialties traditionally and uniquely available in a university hospital, and include long-established departments of clinical pharmacology, toxicology, drug safety and pharmaceutical production. The aim is always to produce translations which are as informed and documented as the original texts themselves - if possible, more so. For example.
- Our statisticians’ daily work is advising clinical and laboratory colleagues on the design of the studies they propose. Notoriously, there are statistical weaknesses in over 60% of published studies. While assisting on the translation of the ‘study design’ paragraph of a research paper, our statisticians have often come up with useful reviewers' comments.
- Our renal transplant surgeon was flattered to discover a description of his own technique in a French CD ROM - and was able to effect diplomatic corrections on two points of detail.
- After wrestling with a profusion of acronyms and abbreviations from a leading German radiology unit, we visited our radiology unit where a team of Siemens engineers happened to be installing a new suite. They kindly provided the answers over a cup of coffee, and corrected a couple of misspellings in the original.
Experts consulted on a given translation are identified in the Word translation file under File-Properties-Summary-Comments, together with their contact details, should the client wish to take up a point directly. No additional charge is made provided the expert’s input is confined to questions of terminology and detail. Deeper input is charged on a time basis, by mutual agreement.
London university hospitals draw postdoctoral physicians and bioscientists from across Europe and beyond. All departments have a high proportion of foreign graduates, almost always with excellent English. These trainee specialists are invaluable when it comes to elucidating difficult texts from their home countries or deciphering the coded handwriting of their colleagues. They are also available to discuss points directly with clients in their own languages.
The Internet has transformed medical translation, vastly accelerating and expanding the authentication of terminology and verification of sources. The St Bartholomew’s site was networked in the mid '80s. A full array of search facilities is available across all the major medical databases at all Trust sites, including an ever-growing number of subscriptions to full-text on-line material. Huge as the Internet's impact has been, however, there are often times when it cannot replace word-of-mouth expertise. Lingua Medica keeps its own database of consultants, comprising hospital staff past and present, and external specialists in a variety of fields, extending from lip synchronisation on video to artificial limb design for landmine victims.
The Internet does not yet provide many full-text specialty manuals of medicine. This remains the role of the medical library. Lingua Medica is blessed in having access to one of the finest libraries of its kind, housed in a large converted church at the Royal London Hospital and administered by Alain Besson, a Frenchman with an English PhD in librarianship.
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The Computer Services Department is a licensed redistributor
of all standard software packages. It is also an approved Word, Excel
and Powerpoint training centre. This ensures that all texts sent for translation
are returned correctly formatted.
