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

Discouraged - What to do?

Posted: Apr 06, 2012

I'm so discouraged. I just started and I'm not used to SR. I'm not even close to what I need to get for line counts. I only have done straight transcription in the past. At this point, I want to throw in the towel, but it has been less than a week. I totally dread going to work and I have NEVER felt that way with my other MT jobs. Sorry for the depressing message, I'm just so lost. And - I'm sure anyone that is used to SR would like the account I work for, it has an abundance of work and the docs are relatively easy.

That is how I felt when I started doing VR - a few years ago SM

[ In Reply To ..]
and it took a while to get used to it. I'm sure you will get some posts that will be very helpful to you. Are you learning the shortcuts that come with the program? Do you have your own expander, like SH? Do you know who your teammates are? Maybe you could get them to join you on Yahoo IM or windows messager so you could talk back and forth with questions. I would just say don't be too hard on yourself, it takes a while to get comfortable with VR. My company was just sold to Nuance so I may be joining you soon.

Are you on the hem-onc account by any chance? - NuMT

[ In Reply To ..]
Are you on that big hem/onc account?

If you are, you're using eScription, which is a really good platform (the best VR program, IMHO). Give yourself time and you'll catch on and your line counts will improve.

It's only been a week, so don't be so hard on yourself. We all take time to learn new things.

Thanks for the encouragement! - :)

[ In Reply To ..]
I appreciate it. I'm not on that account. I'm not using an expander yet, I need to switch mine over from another computer. I can't get Word to work correctly, but I'm terrible with Word 2007, I want 2003 back :). Improvements are not always good. Thanks again.

WhatToDo, if you're willing to work more than an hour - without an expander, you are not using it NEARLY

[ In Reply To ..]
enough. Besides expanding abbreviated text, an expander is what you use to correct "and hypertension, she did not" to "and hypertension. She did not" with 1 or 2 super-fast keystrokes right in the middle of the keyboard (that don't include the caps lock key). You might have one called L, or LL, that you hit when the cursor's on the comma and one called R for when there's no comma and your cursor's at "she." And so on to correct ALL of the routine mistakes the VR program makes over and over all day long.

Besides correcting punctuation, if you're on a speech engine that's not one of the better ones, you need a bunch of them for wiping out a whole sentence, or paragraph, of mangled routine text and dropping in the dictators' standard blurb. If it's the same for almost every report, why hop through line after line correcting mistake after mistake more than once? Even on a good SR, like eScription, some sentences are always produced wrong; identify them and reduce the correction to "smitros" (Smith review of systems, which deletes the flawed sentence, rolls the the right one, and places the cursor after, ready to continue on.)

Some people type so fast they've never felt a particular need to use an expander. Typing almost as fast as the dictation was very, very good. VR's different. You're speeding up the dictation faster than dictated, as much as possible, and making corrections even as you continue on listending and reading, fingers making the corrections from muscle memory just like regular typing.

There are tips right here on this forum in old posts for using expanders and also other groups on the web who share tips for whatever expander you use.

Believe me, it's such a relief, and pleasure, to stop typing out those repetitive ad nauseum corrections and, instead, just swipe a finger a time or two to replace them with clean text. It will make you happy to work again.

BTW, expanders also make great references. Have a dictator whose PE dictation is so awful you can't tell from listening if the SR's interpretation of the PE is correct? Take a few seconds to copy and paste one in your expander so you can quick-compare to the dictator's usual.

Best wishes.

Dont be discouraged. It takes time, you will get it. - its only been as you say

[ In Reply To ..]
its been less than a week. It takes time to get use to SR. The good thing you have in your favor is it's a relatively good account with easy dictators.

Once you get the shortcuts down, sounds like you will do fine.

SR (VR) - typeit

[ In Reply To ..]
Oh I really really really don't want to be negative here, but I used to LOVE my job...like a MT GEEK, I mean it, but I actually nod off and give up after 2 or 3 hours of SR files. I hate jumping around and rearranging things and fixing a word here and there...it is maddening. I learned all the nifty little shortcuts, and yes eScription is an amazing platform, probably the best, but the bottom line is that I like to TYPE. NOT TYPING makes me fall asleep, especially since I work 3rd shift. I stuck through a merger, the loss of my WONDERFUL all Radiology account, and now all my work converting to SR files, with practically no actual typing at all. It's been over 4 years, and I tried to remain loyal and dedicated, because of the basically unlimited available work at any given moment (I have 4 accounts I can work in) but I just can't do it anymore. I am applying to every single job that says "no SR work" until I find the right one for me. I am a medical transcriptionist. I TRANSCRIBE. I don't edit a machine's so-called transcription. I wish I could adapt, but it's been a year and I have to take action. Good luck, everyone! : )

Discouraged, too! - New2Nuance

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm new to Nuance as well. By any chance are you on a new-to-Nuance clinic account?
I have been so frustrated at how much work I've gotten done. I've had a few days where I've made slightly more than minimum wage, but most days I'm not even making half that. I've gotten the shortcuts down and am doing a lot of long reports (actually, minute-wise I am doing great)... but it's just not translating into $$$!

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