Job Discussion Forums

Quibby84 · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 643 Location: Japan

If I have medical records here and need the information to be in English (for when I go back home)..what do I do? Does the City Hall or something (or the hospital) offer some sort of service for this? The doctor in America said that it has to be official, but I dont really know what that means. Anyways, does anyone have any info on this? I have searched the internet and it seems like this would be very common but I cant find much...just companies that translate for really high prices.
anyways, Thanks!

AgentMulderUK · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:57 am Post subject:

Yeah sounds like your City Hall should be your first port of call.

As for the offical thing, I guess the American doctor has to cover himself as he might have to act on information in the report.

I can't see how a typical translation service would be official enough, as at the end of the day, anyone could set themself up as a translator.

In the UK the health service offers such a service. Surely something exists here for the army of Chinese and Korean people alone.

Have you also asked your doctor here? A lot of them are quite able to do it as they learn a lof of English and German anyway, a lot of medical terminology here being in German.

markle · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 1316 Location: Out of Japan

Contact your embassy for a list of certified translators, they will be able translate the records correctly and stamp them as official translations. Basically, you need to pay the money for the stamps for anyone to accept them as real translations.

G Cthulhu · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:14 am Post subject: Re: Medical Translation

If you're going back to a major city wait and get it translated in the US at the local International Institute - it will usually be cheaper than having it done in Japan, and has the advantage that it will get the American "official" seal of bigotted approval. (No prizes for guessing if I'm coincidentally having a bad week with Americans & their "official" translation "standards"...)

If it is just a translation for a US government department, then outside of Social Security (who do all their own translations in house) they will accept any old translation where the translator certifies they are competent to translate the document & aren't related to you.