Greater than 11 minutes, my friend!
Specialization courses for medical translators and interpreters
Medical translators and interpreters are needed both in clinical and business environments. They are normally required to possess a degree in translation or foreign languages with a specialization in medical subjects, but there are also bilingual physicians or medical assistants who work as translators or interpreters in the medical field.
While some countries don’t have set education requirements for hospital interpreters, others do. For example, in the United States you can certify with the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters (CMI) to gain access to working opportunities as an interpreter in this field.
Medical interpreters usually work at:
- Dental offices
- Home health care agencies
- Hospitals
- Imaging centers
- Mental health facilities
- Nursing homes and long-term care facilities
- Physician offices and group practices
- Surgical centers
Translators who work on medical subjects often specialize in a specific field (e.g. Pharmaceutical Investigation, Medical Devices, Medical Publishing/Writing, Healthcare, etc.) and may be responsible for the translation of:
- Applications
- Clinical trial documentation
- Instructions for the use of medical equipment
- Pharmacological instructions
- Physicians’ diagnoses
- Reports
- Written patient information
Apart from the necessary linguistic training, a thorough understanding of specific medical terminology is indispensable.
In some countries, there are explicit processes to become a medical translator and/or interpreter. In the United States for example you can certify with the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters. In Europe, some universities offer medical specializations during your graduate studies or entire Master’s or other long-term programs in this area. Here in Europe, a few examples are as follows:
- Máster Universitario en Traducción Médico-Sanitaria, Universitat Jaume I
- Máster Online en Comunicación Científica, Médica y Ambiental, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
- Attestation d’Études Universitaires “Anglais médical”, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Bridging the Gap offers a 40-hour introductory course at several sites in the US and some international locations, and is organized by The Cross Cultural Health Care Program.
Associations such as IMIA, Tremédica or EMWA also provide information on official and continued education training.
If there is no official way to get certified where you live, or you are already certified but want to go on training yourself in your specialization, you might be interested in the following options you can access online and free of charge:
- A Glimpse into Occupational Health and Safety
- A Nurse’s Guide to Children’s Agricultural Safety
- Active Learning with Technology: Myths, Magic and Mucho Motivation
- Acute and Chronic Rhinosinusitis: A Comprehensive Review
- Adolescent Involvement in HIV Prevention Trials
- Advanced circulatory system physiology
- Advanced endocrine system physiology
- Advanced gastrointestinal physiology
- Advanced hematologic system physiology
- Advanced muscular-skeletal system physiology
- Advanced nervous system physiology
- Advanced Neurobiology I
- Advanced respiratory system physiology
- After-Action Report, a fillable chart for Public Health Performance Evaluation
- Ageing Well: Falls
- AIDS: Fear and Hope
- Air Quality and Environmental Noise
- Alzheimer’s Disease 101
- An Introduction to Global Health
- An Introduction to Population Health
- An Introduction to the U.S. Food System: Perspectives from Public Health
- Analysis and Interpretation of Public Health Data, Part 1
- Analysis and Interpretation of Public Health Data, Part 2
- Anatomy of the Abdomen and Pelvis; a journey from basis to clinic
- Anatomy: Know Your Abdomen
- Antimicrobial resistance – theory and methods
- Antimicrobial Stewardship: Managing Antibiotic Resistance
- Antimicrobial Stewardship: Optimization of Antibiotic Practices
- Application of Surveillance Principles to Food Safety
- Applying Ethical Frameworks during Severe Pandemic Influenza
- Autism 101
- Autism and Related Disorders
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Bacteria and Chronic Infections
- Basic Biostatistics Concepts and Tools
- Basic Emergency Preparedness for Staff of Community Health Facilities
- Basic Food Safety
- Basic Infectious Disease Concepts in Epidemiology
- BBC Inside Health
- Best Management Practices for Animal Research Worker Safety
- Better Conversations with Aphasia
- Beyond ‘Add and Stir’: Engaging Diversity in College Classrooms
- Bioelectricity: The Mechanism of Origin of Extracellular Potentials
- Bioprinting: 3D Printing Body Parts
- Building Bridges across the Professions: Promoting Successful Intraprofessional Collaborations
- Can Champions Be Made?
- Cancer and Medical Terminology
- Cancer Clinical Trials: Practical Tips to Improve Asian American Participation (CME)
- Cardiovascular Responses to Exercise
- Career 911: Your Future Job in Medicine and Healthcare
- Caries Management by Risk Assessment (CAMBRA)
- Case Studies in Personalized Medicine
- Cause and Effect in Epidemiology
- Chemical Hazard Awareness for Public Health Workers
- Child Abuse Recognition, Investigation, and Protection
- Child Care and School Environments: Settings for Obesity Prevention among Youth
- Child Survival
- Childbirth: A Global Perspective
- Childhood Obesity 101
- Climate Change and Health
- Clinical Kidney Transplantation
- Clinical Management of HIV
- Clinical Research Training On-Line
- Closed POD (Point of Dispensing) Partnership Training
- Collaboration and Communication in Healthcare: Interprofessional Practice
- Communicating with Patients after Adverse Events
- Community Change in Public Health
- Community Change in Public Health
- Community Health Nursing
- Community Healthcare Disaster Planning in Minnesota
- Compassionate Care: Getting it Right
- Confronting Gender Based Violence: Global Lessons for Healthcare Workers
- Congenital Hypothyroidism: What Every Primary Care Provider Needs to Know
- Contact Investigation (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Control Strategies for Chemical or Biological Hazards
- Control Strategies for Physical Hazards
- Crisis Code: Teaching Crisis Management Skills to Enhance Management of Advanced Cardiac Life Support
- Crisis Intervention during Disaster (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Cross-Cutting
- Cultural Diversity, Health Disparities, and Public Health
- Culture and Health Literacy: Beyond Access
- Culture and Health Literacy: Case Studies
- Current events in health and medicine
- Decontamination (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Dementia and Diversity in Primary Care: A Primer – Guidelines, Ethnic Differences, and Assessments
- Dementia and Diversity in Primary Care: Latino Populations
- Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials
- Detecting Bioterror (Forensic Epidemiology)
- Diabetes – a Global Challenge
- Diabetes 101
- Dignity and Respect
- Disaster 101: An immersive emergency preparedness and crisis leadership workshop
- Disaster Behavioral Health
- Disaster in Franklin County: A Public Health Simulation
- Disaster Sanitation
- Disease Surveillance (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Diversity and Succession Planning
- Domestic Violence 101
- Drug and Alcohol Abuse
- Drug Discovery, Development & Commercialization
- Drugs in Fitness and Sport – Clean or Jerk?
- During and After a Disaster
- Ebola : Vaincre ensemble!
- Ebola Virus Disease: An Evolving Epidemic
- Ebola: Essential Knowledge for Health Professionals
- ECG Assessment: an Introduction for Healthcare Providers
- Economy and Health: What is the Role of Public Health?
- EHO-Air Supply and Pollution
- EHO-Food Safety
- EHO-Housing
- EHO-Introduction to Environmental Health Online
- EHO-Land
- EHO-Pest Control
- EHO-Water Supply and Waste Water
- EHO-Workplace
- Elderly Patient Advocate
- Eliminating Trachoma
- Emergency Animal Sheltering
- Emergency Management and Preparedness Planning for Community Health Center Leaders
- Emergency Preparedness Training for Hospital Clinicians
- Endocrine system diseases
- Engaging Communities in Public Health Research, Practice and Policy
- Environmental Justice
- Environmental Public Health Tracking 101 (Tracking 101)
- Epidemic! (An online game)
- Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600
- Epidemiologic Methods II
- Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases
- Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression
- Ethical and Social Challenges of Genomic and Precision Medicine
- Ethical Challenges in Public Health Interventions: Catastrophic and Routine
- Ethics and Public Health in an Age of Terrorism
- Evaluating Childhood Obesity Policy Impact In School Settings
- Executive systems of the brain
- Family Disaster Planning
- Family Planning and Reproductive Health
- Fixing Healthcare Delivery
- Food Protection
- Forensic Psychology: Witness Investigation
- Foundations for Assisting in Home Care
- Foundations for Global Health Responders
- Foundations of Public Health
- From Research to Practice: Connecting Principles of ‘Smart Teaching’ to Emergency Preparedness and Beyond
- Fundamentals of Clinical Trials
- Fundamentals of Clinical Trials – Online Training
- Fundamentals of Patient Safety
- Fundraising 101
- Gastrointestinal system diseases
- Gender and Health
- General Environmental Health
- Genomic Medicine: Transforming Patient Care in Diabetes
- Genomic Technologies in Clinical Diagnostics: Molecular Techniques
- Genomic Technologies in Clinical Diagnostics: Next Generation Sequencing
- Genomics: The Connection to Public Health Practice
- Global Adolescent Health
- Global Health and Humanitarianism
- Global Health: An Interdisciplinary Overview
- Global Outbreak: A Public Health ICS Simulation
- Global Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR)
- GlobalHealthX.1: The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Health – Part 1: The Big Picture
- GlobalHealthX.2: The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Health-Part 2: Preparation and On The Ground
- GlobalHealthX.3: The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Health – Part 3: Reflection
- Good Brain, Bad Brain: Drug Origins
- Good Brain, Bad Brain: Parkinson’s disease
- Good Clinical Practice (GCP)
- Good Clinical Practice Training
- Good Distribution Practice Training
- Good Manufacturing Practice Training
- Good Pharmacovigilance Practice Training
- Good Research Practice (developed by MRC Head Office)
- Hazardous Materials
- HazMat Transportation Incidents: Using the Emergency Response Guidebook
- Healers’ Healing and Resiliency in the Aftermath of Disaster
- Health care system
- Health for All through Primary Health Care
- Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research
- Health Informatics on FHIR
- Health Policy/Ethics
- Health Promotion and Adult Education
- Health Systems
- Health Technology Assessment
- Health/Wellness Capstone Project
- Healthcare Delivery Providers
- Healthcare Marketplace
- Healthcare Marketplace Capstone
- Hematologic system diseases
- History of Occupational Health and Safety
- History of Terrorism
- HIV Vaccine Trials
- HIV/AIDS
- HIV: Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment
- Housing Sanitation and Safety
- How to Avoid Injury and Illness
- Human anatomy and physiology
- Human Factors and Safety
- Immigrant Health Online Module
- Implementing Incident Management in Your Health Care Facility
- Improve Departmental Processes with the Public Health Performance Evaluation Primer
- Improving Access to Mental Health Services: The Affordable Care Act
- Improving Team Performance in a Public Health Response
- Improving Your Image: Dental Photography in Practice
- Infection Prevention in Nursing Homes
- Infectious diseases
- Infectious Diseases
- Informed Consent
- Innovating Solutions for Aging Populations
- Inside Cancer: How Genes Influence Cancer Development
- Institutions and Licensed Establishments
- Instructional Methods in Health Professions Education
- Integrative Global Leadership: Leading Across Boundaries for the Common Good
- Interprofessional Healthcare Informatics
- Intro to Statistics
- Introducción a la Salud Pública
- Introduction to Biostatistics
- Introduction to Biostatistics 2: Variables
- Introduction to Breast Cancer
- Introduction to Business Continuity Planning for Disasters and Emergencies
- Introduction to Cataract Surgery
- Introduction to Dental Medicine
- Introduction to Diagnostic Medical Parasitology
- Introduction to Epidemiology
- Introduction to Ethical Frameworks for Public Health Emergencies and Disasters
- Introduction to Healthcare Information Systems
- Introduction to Management in Public Health
- Introduction to Patient Safety
- Introduction to Population Health
- Introduction to Public Health
- Introduction to Research Ethics
- Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
- Introduction to the Biology of Cancer
- Introduction to the Culture of Safety
- IRAS
- Isolation and Quarantine (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Issues and Trends in Occupational Health and Safety
- It’s More than Money: Making the Business Case for Occupational Health and Safety
- Lab values and concentrations
- Leading Healthcare Quality and Safety
- Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing
- Liver Transplant: the Ins and Outs
- Logistics: Strike Teams, Asset Management and Supply Distribution
- Long-term Care Facilities: Emergency Preparedness Plans
- Major Depression in the Population: A Public Health Approach
- Making Babies in the 21st Century
- Malaria and Alzheimer Diseases
- Managing Shoulder Pain in the Clinic: What to Look for and When to Intervene
- Mass Dispensing Sites: A Primer for Volunteers
- Mass Dispensing: A Primer for Community Leaders
- Mass Fatalities (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Maternal Health
- Measuring and Valuing Health
- Measuring Health Disparities (DL) MHDID0806
- Medical Humanity: Engaging Patients and Communities in Healthcare
- Medical Neuroscience
- Medical Technology and Evaluation
- Medical Terminology
- Medical Terminology 101
- Mental health
- Minnesota Disaster Response: Lessons Learned in 2007
- Minnesota Responds Medical Reserve Corps: An Online Orientation for Volunteers
- Moving Beyond HSEEP (Homeland Security Exercises and Evaluation Program), creating well- functioning teams for preparedness response
- Muscular-skeletal diseases
- NCLEX-RN practice
- Neonatal Health
- Nervous system diseases
- NeuroID ELearning
- NIMS (National Incident Management System) and ICS (Incident Command System): A Primer for Volunteers
- NORA Symposium: Occupational Health of Immigrant Workers: Reducing the Disparities
- NUTR101x: Nutrition and Health Part 1: Macronutrients and Overnutrition
- Nutrition 101
- Nutrition and Wellbeing
- Occupational Safety and Health
- Oh, the Places you’ll go: Providing Care in Non-Traditional Settings during an Emergency
- One Health 101
- Online Behavioral Interventions
- Online Medical Terminology Course
- Operationalizing Quality Improvement in Public Health
- Optimizing Antimicrobial Therapy with Timeouts
- Outbreak at Watersedge
- Outstanding Physical Education Lessons
- Palliative Care: Making it Work
- Personal and Family Emergency Preparedness
- Personal Preparedness
- Personal Safety and Health for Emergency Responders
- Perspectives on Disability
- Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Innovations
- Planning and Budgeting for Public Health: Part I – The Business Plan
- Planning and Budgeting for Public Health: Part II – The Budget
- Planning for and Engaging Special Populations in Emergency Preparedness
- PODs (Points of Dispensing): Public Health Training for Staff and Volunteers
- Point of Dispensing Planning: Training in a Virtual World
- Potable Water
- Preparedness & Community Response to H1N1
- Preparedness & Community Response to Pandemics
- Preparing Employees for a Disaster in the Workplace
- Prescription Drug Misuse and Addiction: Compassionate Care for a Complex Problem
- Preventing Chronic Pain: A Human Systems Approach
- Preventing the Zika Virus: Understanding and Controlling the Aedes Mosquito
- Program Development
- Program Evaluation
- Protecting Our Food System from Intentional Attack
- Psychological First Aid
- Psychological First Aid (PFA) Tutorial Mobile App
- Psychological First Aid: A Minnesota Community Supported Model
- Public Health Policy and Advocacy
- Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response
- Public Health: Telling the Story Using Data
- Pulling It All Together: How Do We Address Childhood Obesity?
- Radiation Protection
- Radiological Hazard Awareness for Public Health Workers
- Ready? Set? Test? Patient Testing is Important. Get the Right Results
- Recognition/Assessment: Chemical and Biological Hazards
- Recognition/Assessment: Health Assessment and Employee Selection
- Recognition/Assessment: Physical and Psychosocial Hazards
- Research and human tissue legislation – Updated
- Research and human tissue legislation assessment – England, Wales & NI
- Research and human tissue legislation assessment – Scotland
- Research Data and Confidentiality
- Research Ethics Evaluation
- Responder Self-Care Mobile App
- Rethinking Ageing: Are we prepared to live longer?
- Risk Communication for Community Health Centers
- Risk Communication: Public Engagement in Public Health Practice
- Road to Resilience: Bouncing Back! The Remarkable Attribute Called Resilience
- Road to Resilience: Building Community Resilience to Disasters
- Road to Resilience: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Road to Resilience: Preparedness Pays Off: The 2011 Measles Outbreak in Hennepin County
- Road to Resilience: Protecting Animals in Disaster
- Road to Resilience: Risk Communication Principles and Challenges
- Root Cause and Systems Analysis
- Safe Opioid Prescribing and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS)
- Screening and Assessing Depression in Primary Care Settings: Clinical and Ethical Considerations
- Screening and Assessing Depression in Primary Care Settings: Clinical and Ethical Considerations
- Service Transformed: Lessons in U.S. Veteran Centered Care
- Smarter Eating For Better Performance
- So You Want to Be a Leader in Health Care
- SonoDoc: Case-based Learning in Bedside Ultrasound
- Special Medical Needs Shelters
- Special Populations (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Sports Concussion Education
- Stanford Introduction to Food and Health
- Statistical Reasoning for Public Health 1: Estimation, Inference, & Interpretation
- Statistical Reasoning for Public Health 2: Regression Methods
- Statistics for Medical Professionals
- Statutes and Regulations
- Strategies for Successful Ageing
- Strength and Resiliency: Emergency Preparedness for Tribal Leaders and Program Directors
- Supporting People Living with Long-term Conditions
- Systems Science and Obesity
- Systems Thinking In Public Health
- Take the Lead on Healthcare Quality Improvement
- Teaching Basic Bedside Transthoracic Echocardiography Examination to Evaluate Hypotension and Hypoxemia
- Terrorism, Preparedness, and Public Health: An Introduction
- The American Disease: Drugs and Drug Control in the USA
- The Basics of Exercise Programs for Older Adults
- The Challenges of Global Health
- The Constitutional and Legal Basis for Public Health Actions
- The History of Public Health
- The Many Faces of Dementia
- The New Nordic Diet – from Gastronomy to Health
- The New Science of Change – Connecting Leadership Development and Neuroscience
- The Off-Site Care Facility-An Alternate Care Site: A Primer for Volunteers
- The Science of Global Health Implementation
- The Science of Medicines
- The Science of Nutrition
- The Science of Safety in Healthcare
- Theory and Practice of Occupational Health and Safety
- Thinking Critically: Interpreting Randomized Clinical Trials
- Threshold Limit Values
- Time Management: Your Time, Your Priorities, Your Choice
- To Screen or not to Screen? Methods and health policies through case studies
- Tracking in Action: Workforce Implementation
- Training and Learning Programs for Volunteer Community Health Workers
- Translating Data into Public Health Priorities
- Ultrasound Imaging: What Is Inside?
- Understanding and Improving the US Healthcare System
- Understanding Clinical Research: Behind the Statistics
- Unsafe Acts/Unsafe Conditions
- Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us
- Weight Bias & Stigma: Implications for Healthcare and Health Promotion Efforts
- Wellness Coaching: Powerful Skills for Everyday People
- Whole Genome Sequencing: Decoding the Language of Life and Health
- Working in a Point of Dispensing (POD)
- Writing in Science
- Zoonoses (Public Health Emergency Training Series)
- Zoonoses, Vectors, Pests, and Weeds
- Zoonosis, Preparedness, and Public Health
Tea Dietterich 
Maeva Cifuentes 
Olesya Zaytseva 
What a massive list, Sarah! How long did it take you to build it? It’s well worth featuring it on our home page. 🙂
Thank you Dmitry 🙂 It actually took me a couple of weeks. I have been working on clinical trials for a couple of years now but didn’t have anything “official” to show that I knew about the subject so I started to look for options online and found out that there was a lot of material, but it was actually kind of overwhelming. So when I finally had an overview of what was available, I decided to publish the information as a post so that others wouldn’t have to go through that process. I hope this will be useful!
This list is really helpful, thanks for putting it together! Would you mind answering a couple of questions about the Johns Hopkins ‘Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials’ online course? I’m interested in it but couldn’t find any information on the course website about how many hours per week it would take and how long the assignments take – could you give me a rough idea?
Hi Charlotte,
Thank you! The assignments are tests, so they don’t take really long to complete but they are not easy either. I had to repeat the first one in order to pass. The others were OK. It didn’t take me super long to go through the material either, but I’m also pretty familiar with the subject, so I guess it depends on how much you’d have to look up/ repeat/ know already, etc. All in all, I’d say I maybe spent like 20 hours to complete the entire course. I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any further questions and I’ll try to answer them 🙂
Thanks, Sarah! That’s very helpful. Just one more question – do you have to complete the tests within a particular time frame or just at any point over the course? I’ve got a trip away planned in July and don’t want to have to commit to doing a test on a particular day.
Hi Charlotte,
I’m not 100% sure about this. I pretty much did the whole course in 10 days rather than in 6 weeks because I had time at that moment. So what you sure can do is finish the tests earlier than required. But I don’t know exactly if there is a penalty if you complete them late (I think not for this one, but there surely is some information about this on the syllabus page once you enroll). Some courses also save your progress if you want to switch to a different date (most courses on Coursera are available at several dates throughout the year). I hope that helps 🙂
Amazing list! Thank you! I recommend this free online course I took a few months ago: Clinical Terminology for International and U.S. Students – link to coursera.org
You can sign up so they email you to tell you about future sessions. I created a wonderful glossary out of it!
Daniela, thank you for the link!
Sarah, thank you for this comprehensive list and the images of your certificates! Could you provide the full name of the online course you took at the NIH Office of Clinical Research Training? It’s only partially visible on the certificate, and I couldn’t find it on the NIH training website. I did locate the Good Clinical Practices course on the NIDA Clinical Trials website and plan to take it soon. If you have taken any other courses on clinical trials that you found useful, I’m sure many translators would appreciate it if you could post the course names here. Thanks again!
Hi Roxane,
Thank you, I’m glad this is useful 🙂
Here’s the link to the NIH Clinical Research Training course: link to crt.nihtraining.com. And here’s the link to the NIDA course in case someone’s still missing it: link to gcp.nihtraining.com.
This site is pretty good too but didn’t mention it here because their courses aren’t MOOCs. The courses are taught in person at different European sites and you have to pay a fee. Link: link to eccrt.com.
Whenever I find interesting training opportunities, I also post them to my ‘Translation Biz’ board on Pinterest so I can reference later: link to es.pinterest.com
Sarah, this is a very generous gesture. Thank you very much!
Wow! Thank you, Sarah, for this massive list! You shared a valuable resource 🙂