English for special purposes (ESP) medical English has been offered as a course at Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy (CTUMP), Can Tho City, for several years. Until now, to most of the in-service students, reading in medical English poses a significant challenge due to their proficiency level in English and limited knowledge of vocabulary. They struggle to absorb the medical texts, especially medical terms properly, discouraging them from engaging with medical English documents. There has been a renewed interest in using translation (English-Vietnamese) in medical English classes to support learners. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to examine the difficulties faced by weaker students in learning medical English and to explore their perceptions of teachers using translation in teaching ESP medical reading. The study also investigates the importance of translation as a pedagogical tool in motivating weak in-service students to learn reading and comprehend terminologies and texts. The research results were computed by employing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings revealed weak in-service students’ significant problems, their positive attitudes towards translation as well as their pedagogical role in ESP medical English classes