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Having a Bad Day with Too Many ESLs - mt108

Posted: Oct 08, 2011

So I'm having a irritating, low-production day with ESLs which leads to my question of "Why are these foreigners here?" They can't communicate effectively when no one understands them. What encouraged them to come over to the US in the first place? Were they offered a free education? Did somebody invite them? If so, it sure wasn't by anyone I know. There are hardly any clear English-speaking doctors anymore. I'm getting tired of stuttering ESLs who can't even pronounce their own name. Send them back home. Does anyone agree with me?

i agree - free education

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Free education, big money, not held accountable, low or no taxes!

I would do whatever I felt like too, I guess.

one of the most spurious claims I have ever read - ...

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What gives you the idea that their education is free, they are not held accountable, and they pay low or no taxes?

You get a paycheck, tax gets taken out. What are you thinking?

As for accountability, one doctor is held just as accountable as another doctor in a hospital system.

I have yet to hear of an educational system that lets students come and go as they please sans tuition.

I think you need to get a handle on your resentment.

Really, FreeEd. Absurd. BTW, most ESLs are educated - in their home countries, and we get a lot

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of the best. Yes, most, who typically come from the wealthy classes in their countries, do come here largely for the money, so there's real competition for these jobs, to our benefit.

Why do we hire them? For many decades last century the AMA and other US medical organizations fought the creation of new medical schools. ANY new medical schools. The excuse was ththat they would only put out poorly trained physicians (??!) The real reason was to keep the supply of physicians tight and thus their incomes very high, while an apathetic but growing populace did absolutely nothing to stop a critical shortage of physicians from developing. This lead directly to the demand for physicians from abroad, and we're fortunate to have the ones we do--something you may understand viscerally when you develop a problem and have to wait 5 months to get in to see a specialist. Send them home, and the wait'd be in front of hospitals hoping for care.

Exactly! - anon

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Exactly right about limiting number of medical schools and students to keep doctors' incomes high. Ironically, Obamacare did nothing to provide more medical schools. There should have been money to open 50 new medical schools, one in each state. Amazingly, the AMA claims more doctors will drive costs higher. The theory apparently being that because they will fewer patients to see, they will have to charge more to keep their incomes at the same level. Though, I don't think this is the official position.

ESL overload - I hear ya

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Oh, yes, I agree with you. You know what the reason is, don't you? The American doctors' dictation is going to the Indian MTs, and the foreign doctors' dictation is coming to us American MTs. We should probably move to India if we want the easy dictators. However, there are some American-born dictators who are pretty bad; i.e., yawning, belching, stuttering, and goodness knows what else. :)

Beans for Lunch - antigeekess

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mt108 wrote: "yawning, belching, stuttering, and goodness knows what else. :)"

Don't forget teeth sucking, booger-blowing, and farting (with the predictable aftergrunt of relief, of course).
:)

Oh my yes. - Experienced MT

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There will be a backlash on this thread, I am sure. People are SO PC sensitive anymore. ESL's and a lot of the native docs just don't care about dictating. They feel they have too many other pressures on them. I refuse to go to a doc I cannot understand, no matter what country he is from, and can't understand why anyone else does. I just had one who said "next line next" after each and every sentence, and used this phrase constantly through big pauses. He either had the receiver under his chin and so muffled he was inaudible resulting in many blanks or suddenly would blow my eardrums out by putting the receiver by his mouth. And yes, he was an ESL with very little command of the English language. I will also never understand why more time isn't spent on producing dictators who can be understood, since the medical record is the core area of communication that needs to be accurate in order for others to treat the patients. Whoa! You hit a nerve here!

ESL = MT in Hell :) - antigeekess

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Uh-huh. I've got an Iranian woman who says "you know" at least 2 or 3 times per sentence. I've also got 4 Indians, 2 Africans, a Romanian (I think), a Chineeee...let's see, who else? Quite a crew.

ELSs get paid more in the US of A - sm

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While our jobs gets shipped overseas for cheap labor, we get paycuts, ESLs come here for higher pay.

Opps a little bugeyed about now I ment ESL not ELS - NM

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nn

I agree, but like someone said above, look out - for posts critizing SM

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your "un-PC-ness". :)

I have US speaking doctors - sm

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who I have no clue what they are saying. It's not just the ESL doctors. I don't think anybody can speak English anymore. People do not take the time to use the English language properly or anything for that matter. There is no quality in anything anymore, just how money can people make. I believe in the saying that money is the root of all evil. Greed is going to be the downfall of the human society. I watch on television and see all the crawlers have misspelled words in them, books have misspelled words in them. It is terrible.

Money as the root of all evil - Old Pro

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The actual quotation derives from the Bible, believe it or not. MONEY is not evil, but the LOVE OF MONEY. Taken in the proper context, this changes the meaning drastically. Here is the saying as it occurs in the original: "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil....." (See 1 Timothy 6:10). Money is a good thing. With it, I can fund scholarships for needy youth or donate to the food bank or the Good Samaritan Fund. Those are all good things. However, if I fall into the trap of LOVING money, I suddenly think I need a Ferrari to drive two miles to work, or to yearn to move to Beverly Hills, or become a fashionista or all sorts of other greedy things. Money in and of itself can be a terrific tool for good and a vehicle for helping others. I have never seen a poor person give another person a job.

from greed is good, to me genration, now desperate times. - here I thought alcohol was the root of all evil

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nm

in answer to your question - ...

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Why are these foreigners here? Because this is America.

Unless you are Native American, your ancestors benefited from the American way.

Hopefully, they were not abused by intolerant people. Obviously they reproduced, as you are here.

MT has turned me into a racist! - Nik

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Yep. Before MT I loved all humanity, embraced all peoples, would hum along to that Coke song from the 70s about teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony.

But no more.

Now I scream at my computer screen at sing-song Punjabi docs who hold conversations with their mommies while dictating. Asian docs who add the letter "S" to any and all nouns, and the docs from former Soviet republics who are completely unintelligible until giving their lunch order to someone in the background, and PAs who really want to be doctors and know they're just as smart, but aren't, so pretend they're too cool for it all by talking really fast (okay, so that one's not racist, but I hate them, too).

Love my fellow MTs, though!

I think I love you - Nikstalker

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OMG - I LOVE this! This is exactly how I feel, though I do have to add the docs that pump breastmilk while dictating, use the toilet, drive 100 mph with the windows down, they all make my list too. If only they could all speak perfect English.

Pumping breast milk?? Oh Nikstalker... - Nik

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....please tell me you're kidding!

Why are they here? Well, because - ancientMT

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it boils down to one thing: Training. Fewer and fewer "red-blooded American" doctors have been graduated from American medical schools -- certainly not enough to meet the demand for physicians, particularly in primary care (and now hospitalists). It's flippin' expensive to get an MD here, whereas many foreign doctors are trained in their native countries at public expense. So they come here to fill the gaps because the opportunities exist. It's been a gradual, ongoing trend. When I first started as an MT -- won't admit to just how long ago, but we were using Selectric typewriters because PCs hadn't been invented yet -- it was highly unusual to get ESL dictation; when we did, it drove us crazy. That much hasn't changed, but the percentage sure has. I sympathize with having a bad ESL day but unfortunately, it is what it is. You did ask what encouraged them to practice in the US, though, and that's the main reason. Not a whole lot different than my German and Polish ancestors who immigrated to where the opportunities were to earn a better living, except that nobody had to transcribe their dictation.

Have you looked around at kids in our country? - sm

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One of the reasons we have so many ESL doctors is that our society is raising a bunch of kids who have no drive to do anything but text, do drugs and play video games. Sorry, but that is the way it is. In a lot of other countries kids strive to have a better life and work hard at it. Getting an education to them is a big deal. Here, everybody wants freebies and most kids don't want to go to school or work. If you would like to attack me, go ahead. I have been around awhile and have seen things go down with each generation that comes around. All we are interested in this country is what Charlie Sheen or Paris Hilton are doing this week and our children have role models in sports figures who are in trouble for drugs or beating their wives while making millions of dollars. Just look around.

well, what was your drive as a teenager? With all due respect you are a transcriptionist - how did that work out for ya?

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Not working out for me so well, to be honest!

I was not - sm

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excluding myself from my response, except I did not know what texting was. I was a kid in this country too. Education is not a priority to us in this country like it is in a lot of other countries. I am not saying ALL kids have no drive to be something, but nowhere to the degree they do in a lot of other countries.

Bad ESL day - Old Hand

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All of these comments are interesting, I don't know that I necessarily agree with all of them but that is really not the point. The point is you are not being adequately paid. As long as MTs are willing to work on these dictations for such a low rate, that is going to be the going market rate. The only answer is to stop doing these reports on a production basis or else be paid a much higher rate per line. That is not going to happen until EVERYONE refuses to do this work for next to nothing. The thing is these bad dictations really can't go to overseas, so we can stand our ground with this -- but the question is, will we? Each and every one of us should simply refuse to work for what amounts to sometimes $2 or $3 an hour, not to mention how worn out and exhausted we fell after struggling with these miserable dictations. Do we have enough self respect and respect for each other to risk sticking our necks out and saying no to being exploited like this?

Just wondering. . .

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