翻译资格考试英语高级笔译材料：医学相关.pdf

汉译英1.在特效药、风险性手术进程、放疗法以及特护病房方面的医学进展已为数千人带来新生。然而，对于他们中不少人而言，现代医学已成为一把双刃剑。2.医生采用一系列航空时代技术进行治疗的能力已超过人体本身的治愈能力。从医学的角度来说，有更多的疾病能够得以诊治，可对于许多病人而言，复原的希望却微乎其微。甚至生死之间的基本差别也难以界定清楚。3.不少美国人身陷医学囹圄，形同南韩拳击手金得九(Duk Koo Kim)的境遇。金得九在一次打斗中受到重击，人事不省，大脑停止运转，只能依靠人为方法赖以存活。经其家人允许，拉斯维加斯的医生切断了维持其生命的器械，死神便接踵而来。4.医疗技术进步了，是力求生存还是注重生命质量，哪个目标更为重要，这一问题在全美的医院和疗养院里引发了激烈的争论。5.归根结底，问题在于，医疗的宗旨是什么?位于纽约哈德逊河上黑斯廷斯的社会、伦理及生命科学学会主席丹尼尔卡拉汉说，”是真的要挽救生命还是要为病人谋取更大的利益?6.医生、病患、家属，通常还有法庭都不得不在医疗方面作出艰难的抉择。而这些道德难题往往最容易产生于生命的两个极端生命开初的重病新生儿和生命终端的垂死病患。7.这些因现代医学技术而产生的两难问题已不断催生出生物伦理学的新准则。如 今，全 美127家医学院中已有不少机构开设了医学伦理学课程，要在十年前，根本没人会去注意这个领域。不少医院的员工队伍都包含了牧师、哲学家、精神病医师以及社会工作者，以求帮助病人作出关键性抉择，而有二十分之一的机构专门成立了伦理委员会解决这些难题。8.在所有特护病房的垂死病人当中，有约莫20%的病例，其当事人面临艰难的道德抉择是继续尽力挽救生命还是改变初衷、听凭病患死去。对于是否要维持生命的治疗,不少病房每周大约要作三次决定。9.现在就连死亡的定义也已经改变。既然人工心肺机能够代替心肺维持人的呼吸和血液循环，死神往往不会随着病患的 最后一丝喘息”或是心脏停止跳动而如期而至。因此，哥伦比亚特区以及美国三十一个州已经通过了脑死亡法，将死亡界定为 大脑停止运转。10.十几个州认可病患的 生存意愿，即病患指示医生，如果病症医治无望则通过静脉注射或其他方式中止其生命。针对加州医生的一项调查表明，20%至I30%的医生遵循这样的意愿。与此同时，一项重在为晚期病人提供临终关怀而非救治的安养活动在许多地区颇有发展势头。11.尽管社会对于生死的理解有所进步，棘手的问题仍然存在。例 如：一 位87岁的老妪因受帕金森氏病神经系统紊乱病痛的折磨，严重中风，家人发现她已昏迷不醒。他们需作出决定：是将她安置在疗养院直至去世，还是将其送往医疗中心进行诊断、尽力救治。其家人选择了纽约城的一家教学医院。经检查发现，中风是由血管中的凝块引起的，可通过手术进行治疗。术 后，她苏醒过来，却对自己的家人说:你们为什么要将我带回痛苦的深渊?”她的健康状况每况愈 下，两年后便告别人世。12.另一方面，医生们表明，仅仅根据症状就对疾病结果作出预测往往是不确定的，而病患如果只是年老或是伤残的 话，就应该给予挽救生命的治疗。伦理学家也担心，有了对某些特定疾病不予治疗的决定做幌子，死亡可能会变得太容 易 了，会将整个国家推至接受安乐死的境地。13.对于某些人而言，看见别人依赖高科技术维持生命是极端痛苦的。今年早些时候，一位来自德州波提特从事乳品加工的退休工人伍德罗威尔逊科勒姆因对其兄长吉姆实施了安乐死而被判缓刑。吉姆不幸患有早老性痴呆症，昏日贵糊涂的他只能无助地躺在疗养院的床上。在病患安乐死之后，他的遗孀说：我感谢上帝，吉姆脱离了苦海。想到不得不用这种方式结束他的生命，我就特别难受，可我对此表示理解。”14.新生儿治疗危机-在生命中的另一端,科技发展变革了新生儿救治技术，我们也不清楚人的生命何时可以在子宫外得以存活。二十五年前，体重不足3.5 磅的婴儿几乎难以存活。如今的存活率竟然高达70%,而且医生们还要 抢救”体重仅有1.5 磅重的婴儿。在治疗诸如脊柱裂之类的新生儿畸形方面已经取得了重大进展。就在十年前，只 有 5%患有大动脉转位的新生儿可以存活下来该病为新生儿最为常见的先天性心脏缺陷。而如今，该病的存活率却高达50%。15.不过对于那些借助医学新进展而得以存活的婴儿而言，存活是要付出代价的。许多存活者都患有永久性的生理或心理残疾。16.对于重病新生儿进行治疗还是放弃治疗，这不是一个单纯的问题。黑斯廷斯中心的托马斯默里说，但我坚持认为，那种智力迟钝、有缺陷不足以成为任由一个婴儿死亡的理据。17.然 而，对于许多父母而言，养育患病新生儿的经历已成为挥之不去的噩梦。两年 前，一位亚特兰大的母亲生下一个身患唐氏综合征的婴儿;这个孩子还患了结肠。医生们拒绝了家长不实施手术的恳求，而如今这个孩子，严重智力痴呆，仍然饱受肠病折磨。18.”每次梅勒妮腹泻的时候，她会嚎啕大哭，其母亲解释说。她生活不能自理，而我们总不能长生不死照顾她一辈子吧。我想将她从苦痛折磨中解救出来。我不明白为什么要不惜一切代价地强调活命。对医生和医院的做法我真是气坏了。我们觉得，不再维持她的生命对她而言是最好的解脱。那些医生有悖常理。我质问那些出言威胁如果反对其实施手术就会把我们送上法庭的医生：我们死后谁来照顾梅勒妮?那时候你们这些医生会在哪里?19.改变准则-现代技术为人们提供了选择，进而从根本上改变了医疗的惯常做法。时至今日，大多数的医生都比较激进，他们训练有素，动用一切医疗器械医治疾病。如 今，医生们需要解决的问题不仅仅是谁应该接受治疗，还包括应该何时终止治疗，这引发了不予治疗的趋向。20.往往来自法律的威胁也是导致这种趋向的原因。八月份，两位加州医生被控谋杀了一名昏迷不醒的病人，据说他们切断了呼吸器，停止了病患的食物水源供应。1981年,一位马萨诸塞州的护士被控为一名癌症病人注射大量吗啡致其死亡，而此后她被宣告无罪。21.不少医生深感自己身陷诉讼案件、政府法规和病患权益的交相围困当中。现代技术的确禁锢了他们的决策能力。最近几年，这些诉讼裁决均交由委员会解决。22.公众措施-最近几年，关于医疗伦理规范的争执已经上升到了国家政策的层次。“这才让我们幡然醒悟，我们没有取之不尽的资源。华盛顿医院中心的医生林奇说，说到伦理道德，就自然要谈到钱。23.自1972年以来，美国肾衰竭患者均可以参与由纳税人所支持的肾透析治疗项目，该项目为所有肾衰竭病患提供了延续生命的疗法。许多政策分析员认为，该计划已经失控它亟需14亿美元的资金来支持6万1千名病患。大多数病患都年逾五十，而约莫四分之一的人患有诸如癌症或是心脏病之类的其他疾病，有这种情况的病人在别的国家是不可能做肾透析的。24.一些医院正在撤销某些挽救生命的治疗项目。比方说，马萨诸塞州总医院已经决定不再实施心脏移植手术，理由是此类手术所需费用高昂，受助的病患寥寥无几。烧伤诊治病房尽管成效尤为显著也只能对极少的病人提供昂贵的治疗。25.当医学家正在向治疗的尖端领域推进之时，医生和病患等相关人士仍将面临越来越多的道德两难境地，致使继续治疗还是放弃治疗的抉择成为现代医学的一个基本问题。参考译文1.Medical advances in wonder drugs,daringsurgical procedures,radiation therapies,andintensive-care units have brought new life tothousands of people.Yet to many of them,modernmedicine has become a double-edged sword.2.Doctor s power to treat with an array ofspace-age techniques has outstripped the body scapacity to heal.More medical problems can betreated,but for many patients,there is little hope ofrecovery.Even the fundamental distinction betweenlife and death has been blurred.3.Many Americans are caught in medical limbo,aswas the South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim,who waskept alive by artificial means after he had beenknocked unconscious in a fight and his brain ceased tofunction.With the permission of his family,doctors inLas Vegas disconnected the life-support machines anddeath quickly followed.4.In the wake of technology s advances inmedicine,a heated debate is taking place in hospitalsand nursing homes across the country overwhether survival or quality of life is the paramountgoal of medicine.5.“It gets down to what medicine is all about,says Daniel Callahan,director of the Institute ofSociety,Ethics,and the Life Sciences inHastings-on-Hudson,New York.Is it really to save alife?Or is the larger goal the welfare of the patient?6.Doctors,patients,relatives,and often the courtsare being forced to make hard choices in medicine.Most often it is at the two extremes of life that thesedifficulty ethical questions arise at the beginningfor the very sick newborn and at the end for the dyingpatient.7.The dilemma posed by modern medicaltechnology has created the growing new discipline orbioethics.Many of the countryz s 127 medical schoolsnow offer courses in medical ethics,a field virtuallyignored only a decade ago.Many hospitals havechaplains,philosophers,psychiatrists,and socialworkers on the staff to help patients make crucialdecisions,and one in twenty institutions has a specialethics committee to resolve difficult cases.Death and Dying8.Of all the patients in intensive-care units whoare at risk of dying,some 20 percent present difficultethical choices whether to keep trying to save thelife or to pull back and let the patient die.In manyunits,decisions regarding life-sustaining care aremade about three times a week.9.Even the definition of death has been changed.Now that the heart-lung machine can take over thefunctions of breathing and pumping blood,death nolonger always comes with the patient7 s“last gasp”or when the heart stops beating.Thirty-one states andthe District of Columbia have passed brain-deathstatutes that identify death as when the whole brainceases to function.10.More than a dozen states recognize livingAIIS“in which the patients leave instructions todoctors not to prolong life by feeding themintravenously or by other methods if their illnessbecomes hopeless.A survey of California doctorsshowed that 20 to 30 percent were followinginstructions of such wills.Meanwhile,the hospicemovement,which its emphasis on providing comfort not cure to the dying patient,has gainedmomentum in many areas.11.Despite progress in society s understandingof death and dying,theory issues remain.Example:Awoman,87,afflicted by the nervous-system disorderof Parkinsonz s disease,has a massive stroke and isfound unconscious by her family.Their choices are toput her in a nursing home until she dies or to send herto a medical center for diagnosis and possibletreatment.The family opts for a teaching hospital inNew York city.Tests show the woman7 s strokeresulted from a blood clot that is curable with surgery.After the operation,she says to her family:Why didyou bring me back to this agony?”Her healthcontinues to worsen,and two years later she dies.12.On the other hand,doctors say prognosis isoften uncertain and that patients,just because theyare old and disabled,should not be denied life-savingtherapy.Ethicists also fear that under the guise ofmedical decision not to treat certain patients,deathmay become too easy,pushing the country toward theacceptance of euthanasia.13.For some people,the agony of watchinghigh-technology dying is too great.Earlier this year,Wood row Wilson Collums,a retired dairyman fromPoteet,Texas,was put on probation for the mercykilling of his older brother Jim,who lay hopeless in hisbed at a nursing home,a victim of severe senilityresulting from Alzheimer s disease.After the killing,the victimz s widow said:think God,Jimz s out ofhis misery.I hate to think it had to be done the way itwas done,but I understand it.”Crisis in Newborn Care14.At the other end of the life span,technologyhas so revolutionized newborn care that it is no longerclear when human life is viable outside the womb.Newborn care has got huge progress,so it isabsolutely clear that human being can surviveindependently outside the womb.Twenty-five yearsago,infants weighting less than three and one-halfpounds rarely survived.The current survival rate is 70percent,and doctors are“salvaging some babiesthat weigh only one and one-half pounds.Tremendous progress has been made in treating birthdeformities such as spina bifida.Just ten years ago,only 5 percent of infants with transposition of thegreat arteries the congenital heart defect mostcommonly found in newborns survived.Today,50percent live.15.Yet,for many infants who owe their lives tonew medical advances,survival has come at a price.Asignificant number emerge with permanent physicaland mental handicaps.16.“The question of treatment andnontreatment of seriously ill newborns is not a singleone,“says Thomas Murray of the Hastings Center.“But I feel strongly that retardation or the fact thatsomeone is going to be less than perfect is not goodgrounds for allowing an infant to die.”17.For many parents,however,the experience ofhaving a sick newborn becomes a lingering nightmare.Two years ago,an Atlanta mother gave birth to a babysuffering from Down s Syndrome,a form of mentalretardation;the child also had blocked intestines.Thedoctors rejected the parents plea not to operate,and today the child,severely retarded,still suffersintestinal problems.18.nEvery time Melanie has a bowel movement,she cries/1 explains her mother.She s not able totake care of herself,and we won7 t live forever.Iwanted to save her from sorrow,pain,and suffering.Idon t understand the emphasis on life at all costs,and Iz m very angry at the doctors and the hospital.Who will take care of Melanie after wez re gone?Where will you doctors be then?Changing Standards19.The choices posed by modern technologyhave profoundly changed the practice of medicine.Until now,most doctors have been activists,trained touse all the tools in their medical arsenals to treatdisease.The current trend is toward nontreatment asdoctors grapple with questions not just of who shouldget care but when to take therapy away.20.Always in the background is the threat of legalaction.In August,two California doctors were chargedwith murdering a comatose patient by allegedlydisconnecting the respirator and cutting off food andwater.In 1981,a Massachusetts nurse was chargedwith murdering a cancer patient with massive doses ofmorphine but was subsequently acquitted.21.Between lawsuits,government regulations,and patients rights,many doctors feel they areunder siege.Modern technology actually has limitedtheir ability to make choices.More recently,theseactions are resolved by committees.Public Policy22.In recent years,the debate on medical ethicshas moved to the level of national policy.It s justbeginning to hit us that we donz t have unlimitedresources/1 says Washington Hospital Center s Dr.Lynch.You can t talk about ethics without talkingethics without talking about money.”23.Since 1972.Americans have enjoyed unlimitedaccess to a taxpayer-supported,kidney dialysisprogram that offers life-prolonging therapy to allpatients with kidney failure.To a number of policeanalysts,the program has grown out of control to a$1.4billion operation supporting 61,000 patients.Themajority are over 50,and about a quarter have otherillness,such as cancer or heart disease,conditions thatcould exclude them from dialysis in other countries.24.Some hospitals are pulling back from certainlifesaving treatment.Massachusetts General Hospital,for example,has decided not perform hearttransplants on the ground that the high costs ofproviding such surgery help too few patients.Burnunits through extremely effective also providevery expensive therapy for very few patients.25.As medical scientists push back the frontiers oftherapy,the moral dilemma will continue to grow fordoctors and patients alike,making the choice of totreat the basic question in modern medicine.