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Transition - mtthree

Posted: Jan 16, 2014

How does one make the transition over to acute care with no acute care experience. All the jobs I see want acute care. I fully understand that. I am willing to make the transition if someone would give me a chance. I ran into this as a new MT back 4 years ago. I have clinic experience, but no acute care experience.

I'm looking for jobs daily as I lost my job 2 weeks ago due to electronic records. I need to work as bills are stacking up.

What companies hire for clinic work, willing to accept a MT with only 4 years under her belt, and allow them to try acute care?

That's a tough one but I would still try any of them - see msg

[ In Reply To ..]
I was a newbie back in 2008 and I luckily got hired by the same MTSO as my friend who referred me there and were willing to take on a newbie. That one did not work out but I was with them at least a year and got the experience I needed. I'm with a new one now, but I'm actually looking to get out of MT altogther (due to my own personal reasons), but my suggestion is if you really want to still be an MT and/or work from home for an MTSO to either A) apply to any and all MTSOs you can and see who is willing to test, interview, and hire you or B) get out of MT altogether. Apply to every job you possibly can via newspaper, online, or job training/services or temp agencies in your area. Good luck with whatever you decide. Most posters on here will not tell you the name of the MTSO they work at (which I won't either) or else will tell you which ones to stay away from.

But, I guess any income at this point is better than $0.

We had a discussion going - Not long ago

[ In Reply To ..]
Going from strictly clinic to acute care is almost impossible, IMHO, unless you are a masochist.

The labs, meds, procedures, organisms, parasites, diseases, surgical equipment, etc., are far different from clinic. You will run into SOME of the same things (like meds a patient is on), but there are things done to/for a patient in a hospital that you will never run into in a clinic report.

Some disagree with me, but THEY transitioned okay. I am hard pressed to believe that it was in recent times where MTSOs are not there to hold your hand at all. I'll repeat here what I said in an earlier note.

The doctors are more rushed, so they talk faster and slur a heck of a lot more than any clinic doctor.

You will have hundreds of doctors,a high percentage with foreign accents, other English as second language issues such as sentence structure confusion, verb-subject agreement confusion, and a whole host of other dictator issues.

You will have background hospital noises, such as equipment and phone bells and whistles, patients throwing up, patients screaming, surgical equipment being banged around in a stainless steel sink, the floor waxer going---the list goes on.

If someone tries to talk you into "trying it" I would run from that advice, but you can do as you please. If you do choose to work for an MTSO, be honest about your clinic experience. You'll be in tears if you try to make it look like you have anything but. If you have multiple specialties in clinic, you can try to play that up.

This is really not the time to try to advance your skill---it's just not worth it anymore, in my opinion. There was a time I would have recommended going to an MT school that included lots of acute care, but I can't recommend the field in any way, shape or form anymore.

It's kind of too late now----some of us have been preaching on this board for years to bite the bullet, go to a good MT school for acute care so you can stay in the field as long as possible, but people didn't listen. They assumed their clinic would last forever.

A little background info - mtthree

[ In Reply To ..]
I didn't attend any of the "recommended" schools. My training is the result of a MT program at a local community college. I can't turn back time or I would have applied in acute care as a newbie right out of school. At the time, I had the go anywhere, try anything, take what you can to get experience attitude then move on from there. I figured it was the best direction to go at the time, but now see 4 years of clinic isn't as good as 1 year of acute care. I am the type of person that has to try things for myself to learn. People told me I would never be a MT, never work at home, never find a job...I did. I won't stop looking or trying, but learned to make back up plans along the way, never go with 1 company, etc.

I worked at a local hospital routing the work to home transcriptionists, corrected many of the reports, along with transcribing some of them so I know somewhat about acute care and what it consists of. I may not have the 1 year requirements transcribing records as my other jobs duties came into play. Transcribing was only when my jobs duties were caught up and in my downtime which was very little.

At this point, I'm just deciding the direction to go from here. Thanks for all the helpful advice.

Good luck - On whatever you decide!-nm

[ In Reply To ..]
xxx

I was able to transition to acute care - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
after 5 years of clinic. Got hired by a biggish company (not N or MM) on an account with both and, with time (a year) and my willingness to do whatever needed to be done, was able to get into acute care. It was not as hard for me as the poster would suggest, research everything at first and use samples provided. I would agree with the poster who encourages you to apply anywhere you can. Once you get hired and they are happy with you, you can begin to ask for acute care work. Good luck to you!

Almost impossible to transition now - Frustrated MT

[ In Reply To ..]
When I transitioned from clinic to hospital, I was lucky to find a supervisor in the MT department who was willing to help me transition, but it was a year before I started really feeling comfortable that I was going to be able to do acute care. Very few hospitals have in-house MTs now and the services aren't going to let you struggle for a year until you are good enough. Not trying to be harsh, just realistic. If you are young, you need to get out of MT altogether anyway because it is going away fast in the US. My daughter used her MT skills taking coding classes and got lucky after getting her AA degree and now works at a VA hospital. Classes are on line. Check it out! Good luck!

Totally Agree - see msg

[ In Reply To ..]
Not sure when the poster transitioned from clinic to acute and didn't have a big problem, but it must not have been recently, or she considers ER reports acute care or something.

This job got harder and harder and harder as time went on, not easier, because the MTSOs have chosen to make it that way for us.

I had 15 years acute care experience when I quit 2 years ago---my life was miserable doing this.

I transitioned 3 years ago from clinic to big 4 as well as ER nm - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

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