Japan's first full-scale medical translation course will start in May at translation colleges run by Inter Group Co. to produce trained interpreters for hospitals.
Yearlong courses in medical translation between Japanese and English will be held at five branches of Inter Group, known as Inter Schools, for a total of 104 students in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.
The courses will be supervised by Rinku General Medical Center in Osaka, which opened an international clinic in 2006 where foreign patients can request medical consultations in English, Portuguese and Spanish.