Introduction

In 1998, I started my career as a teacher of English Language and Literature courses in a private school named Ecofil I ran with my brother. For several years, I taught English courses, English syntax and grammar, Old English, Middle English, phonetics and translation for the competitive examination to become a secondary school teacher.

I started working as a freelance translator in 2000 for both final clients and translation agencies. From 2001 to 2004, I combined my job as a translator with a part-time job as a bilingual secretary. My duties were to write documents in English and do translation work reporting to the Head of the Pathology Department at the Santiago de Compostela University Hospital. During this period, I had the opportunity to gain an insider’s knowledge of medical translation and this is how I started my specialty as a medical translator. At this stage, I was also an executive secretary in four international conferences, which allowed me to learn the ins and outs of organizing conferences as well as the editorial work involved in preparing minutes and related documents.

In the first eight years of my career as a translator, I mainly translated documents for companies including contracts, deeds, and all kinds of certificates, annual financial statements, auditors’ reports and web pages. My translations of forest and garden machinery manuals, industrial and engine manuals as well as translations in the field of hydraulic engineering are also worth mentioning.

From 2008 onwards, after completing a master’s degree in biomedical translation, I started working almost exclusively as a medical translator. I translated clinical trial documents, medical papers and agreements between CROs and institutions. At the same time, I was a translation project manager in other language pairs, mainly regarding forest machinery and hydraulic engineering.

Since 2001, I have been a sworn translator appointed by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the language pair English and Spanish.