MDs don't care, so why should we? - JoeUser

There you are, sittin at your desk, slammin your head into yet another mumbled dictation, desperately trying to divine the meaning of the muttering, frantically googling, stedman's open on your lap, cursing all foreign doctors everywhere, and then you get it! After ten minutes of listening intently, tilting your head to one side, pressing the headphones tighter, slowing down the incoherent ramblings, you finally figured it out.

Feel proud afterwards right?

Well, maybe you shouldn't. See, the reality is that a majority of doctors don't even read what we send back to them. They talk to each other, talk to the nurse, talk on the phone, eat their lunch, dictate more reports, etc, while hastily thumbing through the pile scrawling their signature or, in many cases, whacking away with a rubber stamp.

Yes, it's true that some physicians do scrutinize what has been transcribed from their dictations, but on the off chance that they do detect a glaring error, one so heinous that it demands correction, ya know what they do? They whip out their little pen, cross out what you transcribed, scrawl the correction somewhere, and whack it with a rubber stamp.

I'm sorry, but I just can't get all that worked up about accuracy when the physician responsible for the account isn't worked up about it. Anyone who has ever worked on the floor in a hospital, clinic, or anywhere else where doctors dictate reports knows that what I am saying is the truth. They just don't care. So long as it's "mostly" right, they're happy, so why aren't we?

So, the next time you hear dictation something like, "Uhhhhh... *thump*... patient was uhhhh... *thump*... seen... *thump*... on uhhhhhh... * rustling papers followed by a *thump*... Tuesday for a uhhhh... *thump*," yeah; that's yesterday's transcriptions getting the seal of approval while Aunt Margaret's hip replacement followup gets dictated.

And this concludes The Friday Post, brought to you by JoeUser. Have a great weekend everybody!