The Difficulties and Seriousness of Medical Transcriptionist Job

I recently came across an article “An MT Sounds Off About Outsourcing MT Jobs” published in Article Slash and later one more such article “The Horrors of Outsourcing Medical Transcription” in MT Mastery Center, both by Mary Ruff-King, an onshore MT who is into this profession for more than 15 years, where she is lambasting against outsourcing medical transcription jobs, citing that the quality of the outsourced work remains poor and vouches that the jobs should be done at homeland itself!

Leave apart the debate whether medical transcription jobs should be routed offshore or not, still a mistake made by a medical transcriptionist, no matter whether it’s an Indian or a Filipino or a native US citizen, has serious implications on the health of the patient involved as the treatments could differ if a disease or a drug has been replaced by an interpolation error, or even a misplaced single punctuation could make tons of difference in the meaning of a sentence. Medical transcriptionists, we do have a greater responsibility than the doctors as our deeds (and mistakes) come out in a recorded format. Medical transcription is not a child’s play. Understand the difficulties and seriousness of medical transcriptionist job.

I remember once while helping out one of my friends with blanks where she had typed in the social history “The patient lives with his knees.” Think of the blunder when “niece” got replaced with “knees.” It’s just the output of being absentminded at work. What consequences it could have made if it is an interpolation error with a drug or a disease? No spell checkers could figure out errors like this!

Now the question, how to plugin those errors? We are always blind to our own mistakes. To a great extent we can overcome this by proofreading our reports before dispatching them. Review your reports with a detective mind as if you want to find out mistakes and criticize. Correlate the drugs prescribed and their dosages with subsequent actions and reactions and the conditions/diseases that the patient is suffering from which could allow us to justify if the drugs have been prescribed for the existing/prevailing conditions of the patient or not. Keep always an eye on normal values as even a zero or a misplaced punctuation could make a vast difference.

If you’re an offshore MT, try to familiarize with the names, the local places and institutions of the area where the hospital for which you are working for is located; try to understand the slangs, the jargon, or the lingo, whatever she has mentioned there in that article. (Have a look at some funny medical/doctors’ slangs and acronyms.) Internet is a very powerful tool where you can fetch information on anything under the sky. Search Google for the words, names or measurements that you are not familiar with. Research a lot about the usages of the particular word that you’re doubtful of before applying it to the report you are working with.

Don’t hesitate to leave blanks. It’s always safe in medical transcription to admit your defeat than acting over smart. Try blank filling tips and techniques; if still doubtful, surrender with hands up. Nobody is 100% perfect always.

Minimize distractions while you are at work. If you are a home transcriptionist seclude yourself to a room with no distractions from family members or neighborhood. I have seen people chatting (with topics nothing concerned about work) with their relatives and friends on instant messenger while some others downloading music, videos or any such thing that they want to do on the internet while at work. Distractions like these could cost the life of a patient or your job or the contract of the company that you are working for or even hefty compensations for the mistakes. Do one work at a time.

Keep your mind fresh. Sleeping at least eight hours a day should keep you fresh. Don’t let your thoughts wander elsewhere when you’re at work. Bite what you can chew. Say no when you want to say no, deny extra work beyond your capability. Individual capabilities vary from person to person and the difficulties in medical transcription too, especially with different dictators and different accounts. Somebody might be comfortable with typing 1000 lines a day while his friend may be doing with even 4000 lines plus a day.

Flag any inconsistencies that the doctor may have made that might have come to your attention. If the audio quality is poor, don’t try to perform your acrobatics on the report. Deny that job and flag it off.

Understand the seriousness of the job you are involved with (especially you, offshore MTs), overcome these challenges in medical transcription, and avoid messing up keeping in mind that you are fiddling with the life of a patient.