A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

(again) got a call this time from a nurse - sm

Posted: Mar 02, 2013

and she knew someone who is almost retirement age, having trouble making ends meet, no husband -- now she didn't know if she could spell, but she could probably type -- and figured maybe she could do what I am doing. She didn't get along well with people, so it would have to be an at-home position. ARRRRRGGGGG!!!! and could I help her...

now I have had numerous calls such as these over the years, but from a NURSE!? You'd think at least she might have an understanding of what is required for transcription. It is so sad that we are required to know so much, get paid so little and then not even have the common respect of people in the medical field.

I transitioned from nurse to MT with no problems at all. - NM

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x

you seem to have misunderstood my post - sm

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this was a nurse inquiring about her friend. A friend who cleaned houses all her life, that she thought could instead start doing transcription.

From the looks of things in this thread your - post was not clear. The responders (sm)

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aren't the issue. Your post is rather confusing, but whatever.... LOL

That made you LOL? - hmm...

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.

Im not the poster who posted LOL, but the entire - thread actually made me laugh when

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I read it :)

I understood the post when I read it and it makes - me angry. I have SM

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had inquiries like this several times from people who just want to work at home, have no training whatsoever for this job, and this it sounds easy. I'll tell you one thing. At least for me, this job has become more difficult now with all these platforms, specifics for each hospital and even each doctor, having to account for every minute of time I am working (being paid by production this is not necessary as no one is trying to steal time from the company obviously), on and on. It seems the ability to transcribe is now way down on the list of abilities for this job now. In any case, it seems only MTs understand the knowledge we must have in order to do this job accurately. Such a shame.

I agree completely! nm - angry as well.

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x

Do you have an ad posted somewhere - how do they get your number

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You have had numerous calls such as these over the years? Where do they get your number? Why not just tell the nurse as soon as she trains you to be a nurse, you will train her to be an MT.

Mabye you shouldnt tell people what you do for a living!

:) to you OP. I'm not surprised at your clueless nurse. - Chances are excellent she has never

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been good at written English herself. A talent for written language is not necessary to enter the field, and a lot of people are hard wired to take in information best in other ways--through talking, listening, touching, etc. Reading resorted to when other means fail.

I certainly wish all would-be practitioners were tested for adequate competence for written form--enough that they don't shy away from it. Strange (and appalling) to say, some can struggle through school adequately but afterward still take in much more info from hearing and observing than from reading the charts. I saw this early on in a hospital, when I'd notice something missed that was clearly written on the chart but not read.

(This eye-opening experience is why I always religiously break text into paragraphs, delete extra words where appropriate, and number everything that can be numbered. I worry about the patients.)

In any case, we can't expect the respect that comes with understanding from those who have never known--or cared to know--the petty nothings of why a semicolon might be more functional than a comma, and vice versa. :)

Flame away but - these posts get tiring.

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Being an MT is hard in many ways, and the nurse should probably know that spelling is obviously an important part of our jobs, but this attitude that what WE type is IMPORTANT stuff, therefore others couldn't POSSIBLY understand it? C'mon. We don't MAKE the medical decisions, we REPORT them. And we get to do it one at a time in a nice, orderly fashion, not all happening at once, and we don't have the thought in the back of our heads every single time that somebody might die if we screw up. This was just a curious person wondering if her medical knowledge might be useful in another venue. One of the things I like about MT is the knowledge that I will be able to do this long after so-called "retirement age," assuming my hearing and brainbox are still intact. This is just a person who wanted info. It seems like we can educate without attaching all the "how dare you not appreciate the depth of my knowledge" outrage.

The nurse didnt want to know if her knowledge - would be useful in another venue

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she was asking for a friend who cleaned houses for a living and apparently had no medical background. It's not that what we do is so critical, it's the fact that people think anybody can just sit down and do "your little job at home" as I have had it stated to me. Just annoying.

thanks for understanding. - no message/OP

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x

People who dont read the complete posts before answering - are so tiring

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yawn...

No job is immune from this - sm

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Did you understand what is involved in MT before you learned it? Why would anyone else?

People just don't know what anybody else does until they can do it themselves, and that includes you.

There is a perfect example of this right on this board. At least weekly, if not more often, an MT will make a statement about coding that is based in a lack of understanding of what coding is. It is based on what the MT thinks coding is because of what they think they see or because of what they assume must be the case.

Outsiders think MT is typing because that is what they see--they do not hear the dictation from your end and have no clue how difficult it is to learn it.

Outsiders think coding is copying numbers from a book. They think it is some kind of nonprofessional clerical work. It involves a desk anda computer, which to them equals clerical work. They also have no notion of any type of job involving code sets other than front-line "coder," and they thus think that the minute some computer can do that there will be no future for coding.

We only know what we know, we are not aware of what we do not know, and we think we know it all anyway. We are all guilty of it. Nurses do not know what is involved with MT, MTs do not know what is involved with coding, and on and on.

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