Why we translate unfavourable findings, every time

A medical record translation has one job: to let a physician who cannot read the original make the same judgement they would have made if they could. Every omission, however small, breaks that. The borderline tumour marker, the incidental nodule, the sentence noting poor medication compliance: these are precisely the details a reviewing team weighs.

The rule, stated plainly

• Everything in the source appears in the translation, favourable or not.
• Values keep their original units and reference ranges; conversions sit beside them, never replacing them.
• Ambiguities are flagged with a translator's note, never silently resolved.
• Staging always names its edition, because TNM categories shift between AJCC editions.

An agency whose revenue depends on a treatment going ahead has a quiet incentive to soften the file. Ours does not: we charge published fees for the translation itself, take no referral fees, and are paid the same whether an institution accepts a case or declines it. Declining, incidentally, is a normal outcome, and a translated file honest enough to be declined on is a file doing its job.

Written by Paperwork First. General information, not legal, immigration or medical advice; policies and prices move, and the issuing authority's current text prevails.

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