A Special Feature of SIS Students and Teachers Against Pandemic as Translators and Interpreters
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) resolutely implemented the spirit of the important instructions given by General Secretary Xi Jinping and always put people’s lives and health in the first place. Go where there is pandemic, fight it till it perishes. In this spirit, SYSU assembled an anti-pandemic team fighting at the front line around the clock. Remarkable achievements have been gained for the swift actions of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU, the designated hospital in Zhuhai and for the dedication of its medical personnel.
As a gateway and hub of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Zhuhai enjoys frequent international personnel exchanges. In 2019, Zhuhai had over 173 million entry-exits for the first time. During the pandemic, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU shouldered important responsibilities for the effective distribution of international-aid medical supplies, and screening, diagnosis and treatment of foreign patients in Zhuhai. With professional specialties and a teaching and research group of international medical translation, SIS provided multilingual services for the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU in the diagnosis and treatment of foreign cases. SIS also played an important role in the effective distribution of medical supplies, screening of foreign patients with fever and treatment of foreign confirmed cases.
PartⅠ: Translation of Medical Supplies Instructions and Decisions
Since it released an announcement of accepting public donation on January 26th, 2020, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU had received various protective equipment like the surgical mask, protective clothing from alumni at home and abroad, overseas students, charitable enterprises and communities. Multilingual services were needed for the identification of the use of conditions and methods (see Figure 1) of these supplies which were mobilized from different countries in a short time. Knowing this, SIS organized a multilingual translation team swiftly to support the hospital’s work. This team translated important information of medical supplies instructions at any time, improved the connectivity of medical supplies in foreign standards with GB standard and provided decision-making information for effective distribution of medical supplies from overseas.
(Medical supplies instructions)
PartⅡ: Remote Interpreting for Screening of Patients with Fever
On February 27th, 2020, the hospital admitted and treated two Koreans with a high body temperature during customs clearance in Gongbei Port. However, medical personnel couldn’t carry out screening work for the two people’s unwilling cooperation as a result of the language barrier and their unfamiliarity with the medical system and the medical service process in China. Ms. Guo Cong, a member of the teaching and research team of international medical translation and Ms. Xie Li, a teacher of the Korean department formed a team for remote interpreting. Assisting doctors in International Medical Services, the team provided language services to the two Koreans and practiced psychological counseling to patients.
Thanks to the cooperation between two teachers and the medical personnel, the two Koreans calmed down, communicated with doctors effectively and received examination and treatment. Fortunately, they both were tested negative. During the whole process, the interpreters conveyed the care of the medical staff to the patients and enabled patients to fully understand Chinese medical procedures and care culture while respecting Korean culture. According to the result of the questionnaire on this interpreting service, patients felt that the interpreters “understand my needs”, “can accurately convey my intention to medical staff”, “speed up the examination process”, “understand my cultural background”, “calm my emotions”, etc. Before their discharge, the two Korean patients expressed deep gratitude to the medical personnel and the interpreting team. They said that efficient medical care and considerate cross-cultural care eliminated their doubts and fears, so their trip to China came to a good end.
Part Ⅲ: “Translation Team for COVID-19 Response”
Recently, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU, a designated hospital for foreign patients, needed urgent language support due to increasing imported cases. Under the call and support of leaders, SIS quickly set up the “Translation Team for COVID-19 Response”. This team was composed of 28 MTI students of Class of 2019 with Ms. Guo Cong and Lin Hong, a head nurse in the Phoenix International Multi-disciplinary Treatment (MDT) Center of the hospital as coordinators and Professor Yang Chengshu as an adviser.
The translation team worked online. Team members implemented the rotation system of “Even-and-Odd Days Plus Three Shifts”. That’s to say, the 28 members were divided into six shifts (see Figure 2), and each shift worked four hours. Ms. Guo Cong was in close contact with the hospital, answered students’ questions and strictly controlled the quality of translation. Head nurse Lin Hong gave feedback on the needs of front-line healthcare workers and explained medical issues to students. If tasks were urgent at a certain time, the next shift would be on standby to provide timely support. Each shift had a leader who took turns to stay on duty and was responsible for tasks such as receiving and sending translation materials, assigning tasks, coordinating and communicating, submitting final versions of translation, organizing documents and writing translation logs. Members of each shift cooperated with their leaders to ensure an orderly operation and on-time completion of tasks.
(Rotation system)
Due to this pandemic, the translation team collaborated with each other online. It set up an online sharing platform for bilingual medical texts and established a mechanism for sharing and editing documents and corpus. Compared with the traditional working pattern, the online sharing mechanism reduced the unnecessary time consumption of document transfer and integration, and lowered error rates of texts, greatly improving the efficiency and easing the burden of translation management.
The translation team implemented the model of “Practice Plus Teaching”, incorporating the concepts of “learning by doing” and “learning by servicing” into this translation practice. Volunteers improved their abilities in translation, proofreading and searching information and broadened their horizons during this process. Their work included translating and proofreading various medical documents, such as informed consent forms, patient admission information, registration forms for people traveling from abroad, communication cards with humanistic care, etc. It also included adding, revising and organizing multilingual glossaries and corpus, searching parallel texts and background knowledge, and uploading them to the Cloud. Through these daily tasks, all members mastered the stylistic features of medical texts.
Highlighting the function of education is another feature of the translation team. On the one hand, teachers followed up on projects in real-time, handled students’ queries, strictly controlled the quality of the translation, and held regular webinars to summarize and reflect on the outcomes of practices. During the translation process, teachers focused on cross-cultural issues and humanistic concerns in the international medical process while training students’ language skills. On the other hand, volunteers also helped each other. When encountering difficulties, they found solutions through independent study, summaries writing and discussions, which were finally presented in an online shared document with 10,300 words (see Figure 3).
(Cover of work log)
During the 13 days of work, the volunteer team completed their tasks, translating over 30,000 words and it added up to 476 hours of service. It received many praises and deep appreciation from the medical staff of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU.
The original aspiration of the volunteer translation team is to contribute to China’s and even the world’s efforts to fight against COVID-19. They learned in service and improved themselves in learning to serve the society better. Now, let’s listen to the voices of several volunteers.
Chen Jia (Postgraduate for Interpreting): I feel lucky to have direct access to first-hand medical translation materials. I also feel delighted to contribute myself during the pandemic when I could contribute to the nation at home. Sometimes the task was urgent and I felt a bit tired from the worries making mistakes and inability of meeting the timeline, but there was always something making all efforts worthwhile, such as the active participation of other members or the encouragement from the teachers and the medical staff of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU.
Fang Yuan (Postgraduate of Translation in Class 2, member of the CPC): As the virus wreaked havoc in China, people from all walks of life have been joining in and working together in this fight against COVID-19. As I watched the hard work of front-line medical workers, I also wanted to do my part with my professional knowledge and to fulfill my obligation as a foreign language learner. As the number of imported cases was increasing, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU urgently needed translators, so I immediately joined the translation team, hoping to fulfill my responsibility. We met lots of challenges as a result of the professionalism and difficulty of medical translation, and tight schedule and heavy workload. However, we didn’t shrink back. Under the leadership of our teachers and medical staff, a team of nearly 30 people was quickly formed. Members cooperated well with one another, the whole team operated efficiently and completed all translation tasks in an orderly manner. By far, we have completed high-quality translation of a large number of texts and facilitated the communication between patients and medical staff of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU.
Zhang Ziyu (Postgraduate of Translation in Class 1, member of the CPC)：I was so excited about joining this translation team. At the very beginning of winter vacation, Ms. Guo Cong assigned us tasks of accumulating terminology and practicing medical interpreting and translation every day, so it’s a good opportunity to apply what we had learned. Urgent tasks required scientific project management and flexible team cooperation. Carefulness is important. Each member was quickly adapting and growing during the whole process. At this important time when Guangdong was fighting against potential imported cases, we made great contributions to the exchanges between China and foreign countries in terms of pandemic prevention and control by translating and proofreading medical reports and informed consent forms for the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU. At the same time, the whole team accumulated a lot of language resources such as medical translation corpus. I am grateful to my teachers for their patience and guidance, and I have learned that it is not easy to build and operate a team. This week I have made due contributions rather than merely staying at home. Everyone is working hard for the final victory, and we believe that spring will come soon!
Cheng Rou (Postgraduate of Interpreting, member of the CPC): During this pandemic, I feel honored and fortunate to work with my classmates as a volunteer. During the practical process, I not only felt the importance of the interpreter and translator but also contributed in our way!
Zhang Xuewei (Postgraduate of Interpreting, member of the CPC): This volunteer activity means a lot to me. In the past, I could only contribute by donating money or paying close attention to needed situations. But this time, I feel a sense of mission and accomplishment for being able to use my professional skills to contribute to the national fight against COVID-19. Besides, this event was a good exercise and enhancement of my medical translation ability. Under the guidance of the teachers and medical staff, I also deepened my understanding of medical translation, which is believed to be very helpful for my medical translation course next semester. Overall, I am very honored and grateful to be a part of the volunteer translation team, and I sincerely hope we can overcome the pandemic soon.
Hong Ye (Postgraduate of Translation in Class): The beginning of 2020 was special because of the pandemic. Similarly, my winter holiday in 2020 was special because of the translation team for the COVID-19 response. I am glad and grateful to have this opportunity to contribute myself as a foreign language learner to this fight against the pandemic. I feel lucky to access first-hand medical information, and I have grown rapidly in medical translation thanks to teachers’ comments, classmates’ sharing and the feedback from the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of SYSU. I look forward to a more exciting medical translation class next semester, and I firmly believe that the dawn of victory in the fight against the pandemic is not far away.
Kong Yueyi (Postgraduate of Interpreting): As the beginning of 2020 was unbelievable and worrisome, I am happy to join the “Translation Team for COVID-19 Response”, which allowed me to get down to my work and contribute myself to the hospital and the country with what I had learned. I have gained a lot from this volunteer work. I not only made progress in translation but also felt the dedication and commitment of the volunteers, teachers and medical staff around me. All these make me believe that we will overcome the pandemic with the efforts of millions of people.
Wang Dahui (Postgraduate of Interpreting): Although I could not be at the forefront of the fight against the pandemic, I was able to make my contribution to society with my professional knowledge, which made the longest winter holiday worthwhile.
Zeng Haixing (Postgraduate of Translation in Class 1, member of the CPC): I am honored to respond to the call of the SIS and become a translation volunteer, making my contribution to the fight against COVID-19. This activity increased my medical knowledge and enhanced the collaboration ability between me and my partners. Therefore, I am grateful to my partners, to my teachers for their patience and guidance in particular and to the SIS for giving me this opportunity. In the future, I will keep on working hard.
Luo Wenxin (Postgraduate of Translation in Class 2, member of the CPC): Although I can’t fight at the front line of the pandemic like medical personnel, I, a university student, also hope to do something meaningful to help others. Therefore, I am very glad that I have this opportunity to contribute to the fight against the pandemic with my professional knowledge.
