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General introduction: From Pharmacy to Medical Translation and Writing: A Healthcare Professional’s Perspective on Terminology

 

When I began my career as a medical linguist, I relied heavily on my prior medical and pharmaceutical expertise as a Doctor of Pharmacy and healthcare professional. This foundation gave me a valuable advantage in managing medical terminology with confidence, further consolidated by my certified training in medical translation. Over time, my experience in the medical linguistic field has refined my perspective on terminology and healthcare communication.
In hindsight, acquiring my dual role as a pharmacist and linguist made me realize that even a strong medical background does not automatically guarantee a perfect, linguistically precise and appropriate use of medical terminology. This awareness has been shaped through sustained bibliographic and terminological research, consultation of linguistic, clinical and regulatory terminology sources and guidelines, as well as through assignments involving bilingual document review and specialized terminological services.

French healthcare professionals are naturally comfortable with medical terminology, but several linguistic patterns are common:

• Using terms that are not recommended in formal medical French, e.g. "pathologies" instead of "maladies" or "affections".

• Multiplying calques and anglicisms often unconsciously, e.g. "patient sous traitement" or sometimes intentionally especially in clinical trial contexts e.g. "groupe contrôle" versus "groupe témoin".

• Using terms interchangeably that are not true synonyms, e.g. "récidivant" versus "récurrent".

• Overlooking false friends (semantic anglicisms) between English and French, e.g. "dysuria" versus "dysurie".

A constant tension exists between entrenched professional usage and linguistic recommendations that are scientifically well founded, but only partially reflected in clinical practice. A telling example is the widespread use of the term "invasif" to describe medical procedures involving tissue penetration. While alternatives such as "pénétrant" or "effractif" are linguistically recommended in this context, they remain marginal in routine medical usage, illustrating the gap that can arise between terminological precision and common usage in clinical practice. When a medical term or expression is controversial, yet deeply entrenched in medical practice or in clinical trial documentation, I often find it challenging to recommend its replacement with a more linguistically correct alternative, as doing so could appear pedantic or counterproductive. For example, I may accept the use of "chirurgie majeure", even though it is sometimes criticized as a calque and replaced with "chirurgie lourde", a term considered more appropriate.

My dual expertise enables me to navigate the balance between both approaches, bridging the medical and linguistic perspectives to achieve clarity and precision without disregarding practical realities. Within this framework, I am pleased to share my article on French regulatory medical translation and writing, drawing on my medical and linguistic background and illustrated with examples from my experience in terminology management, medical writing consulting and bilingual document review.
This article is intended for French medical translators and writers, who may find it useful and benefit from its insights, to enhance linguistic precision and terminology management in regulatory contexts.
Finally, it is worth noting that medical writing is a multifaceted discipline: e.g. regulatory, scientific and patient-focused writing; each of which requires a distinct approach. A skilled medical writer must be able to use a variety of styles, balancing precision, clarity and readability. Regulatory medical writing is the most constrained of all, requiring strict compliance with regulatory requirements while preserving clinical readability.

In medicine, words are never just words; they communicate decisions, influence safety and have a significant impact.

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