Becoming a medical translator: Who are the experts?

As time goes by, more and more health tourists from different countries over the world have come to Turkey to get more affordable health care or receive better medical treatment. As the number of medical tourists has been increasing in the recent years with marketing activities by the medical tourism sector, the demand for medical translation is also gradually increasing. Meanwhile, it is the reality today that time pressure exists in every aspect of business world. Hence, in order to compete with the time needed to provide adequate translation services to the increasingly globalized business as medical tourism, translation industry demands the competent translators who can meet the needs of the translation sector. In this regard, at one side there is the increased demand for the speed in the delivery of translations and on the other side, as incompetently done medical translations can have an adverse effect on people's lives, most of the time, there is the requirement for quality in translation. Therefore, there is an issue to consider: who are the experts in writing good-quality medical translations within set time and cost: physicians? translators with/without medical background? physicians with translation background? or translators, specializing in medical translations? The aim of this thesis is to go a step further in this perspective of thinking and find out the answers of the following questions: "what does it take to become a medical translator and who are the experts?".