In Part 3 of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted wrap up their discussion with Duncan, President at DTS Language Services about AI, risk mitigation, and the human factors that are hard to capture in clinical trial translation.

Duncan calls translation the “last mile” of clinical trials, where small details can decide whether a site activates or a patient stays in a study. He explains why AI has a place when millions of words are on tight timelines, but argues that low-volume, high-risk clinical content is a very different proposition. He compares AI translation to an autopilot where the human is only brought in after something goes wrong, and describes how translators are spending 80% to 90% of the usual effort correcting AI output while being asked to accept much lower prices.

And just when it gets serious, Duncan closes with a story about what happened when he translated a stack of Chinese tattoos. Spoiler: most of it was gibberish!

In Part 2 of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted continue their discussion with Duncan, President at DTS Language Services about patient trust, consistency, and the operational realities of translating clinical trial content.

Duncan explains how small issues, from inconsistent terminology to differences in date formats, can undermine a patient’s confidence in a study and even lead to missed visits. Trust comes from consistency, fewer handoffs, and an approach that fits the purpose of the content, and describes the “quilt factor” that builds up when previous translations, multiple CROs, and competing terminology databases pile on top of each other.

The conversation ends on a question every sponsor should ask before translation begins: what does success actually look like?

In Part 1 of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted sit down with Duncan, President at DTS Language Services, to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of clinical trial translation. Drawing on experience in both pharmaceutical and language services, Duncan explains why translation is far more than converting words from one language to another, and why a mistranslation in a clinical study isn’t just a typo but a potential risk to a patient, a trial, or a regulatory submission.

Duncan explains why the real work of translation starts before the translation itself: understanding who is reading the content, their language, reading level, context, fears, and emotions, and making sure the final version is both linguistically trusted and faithful to the approved source. He argues that translators have to resist the temptation to “improve” content. Liam connects this to a problem he's seen: the constant addition of complexity, particularly in consent forms.

This episode is a candid look at the hidden complexity behind clinical trial translation and the role it plays in patient trust, compliance, and study execution.