Medical Transcription An Emerging Profession

M edical Transcription is         the editing process can range      the process of                 from a few corrections to major    interpreting and               changes because voice recognition  transcribing the dictation made       software still hasn't been         by doctors or other health care       perfected and probably never will  professionals regarding patient       be due to the wide variety of      status, treatment procedures,         speech variations and dictating    diagnoses, prognoses, etc. With       habits of health care              medical transcription of dictated     professionals.                     data from physicians, the medical                                        transcriptionist may also edit        Aside from medical knowledge, a    the text that is produced by          quality transcription requires a   voice recognition software.           transcriptionist to have           Medical Transcription is the          excellent listening skills         translating of dictations made by     because they must be able to       a doctor. As a result, it             simultaneously interpret           requires an extensive knowledge       dictation while typing, they must  of medical, pharmacological and       also have an exquisite knowledge   anatomical terms.                     of English and grammar,                                                  proofreading and editing skills,   In the past medical                   a high state of analytical skills  transcriptionists would listen to     in order to analyze and convert    dictations and type it                spoken words into meaningful       themselves, but with the dawn of      writing, as well being adept in    technology and voice recognition      the use of transcription           software, this has become             equipment and computers.           unnecessary and today, for the                                           most part, the medical                Medical Transcription has been     transcriptionist merely edits the     seen as writing in ancient caves   output of the software. However,      and in documents of lost           civilizations, but still the          and most people might not have     purpose of medical transcription      heard about it. However, medical   and the medical transcriptionist      transcription is an essential      remains the same and that is to       profession in the every growing    keep a record of a patient's          health care industry...            medical status and treatment.         especially to health care staff                                          that does not have the time to     However, it wasn't until the late     put into writing every single bit  20th century that Medical             of information that they gather    transcription was recognized as a     from patients. As a result, the    profession. Initially, those who      demand for qualified medical       did medical transcription were        transcriptionist professionals is  labeled as typists, word              continually growing and because    processors, medical secretaries       the number of new procedures       or dictating machine operators.       coming into the market doctors     This was and still is a highly        don't have the time to transcribe  unjustified job title for those       all their findings.                who practice medical                                                     transcription because the             Medical Transcription as a         profession requires a wide            profession is very versatile as    knowledge of medical terms. Thus,     well. Medical transcriptionists,   in 1999, Medical Transcription        can acquire after a few years of   was assigned its own job              education, work from medical       classification and those              transcription firms. Medical       practicing it were officially         Transcription firms receive        called medical transcriptionists.     dictations made by doctors and in                                        turn, these orders are turned                                            over to medical transcriptionists  Medical Transcription as a            to be transcribed.                 profession is very underground                                           A medical transcriptionist can        transcribing the words dictated    also work full or part-time at        by a doctor. Medical               home. Currently, the American         Transcription is evolving and now  Association for Medical               requires specific education        Transcription is governing body       centering on medical language,     in the United states that             knowledge of Greek and Latin       certifies Medical                     prefixes and suffixes, anatomy,    transcriptionists, although you       physiology, disease processes,     won't need a certification to be      medical science and procedures,    able to work as one, a                medical instruments,               certification form the AAMT, will     pharmacology, laboratory           surely increase you're "market        instruments, laboratory test       value" and credibility.               results, medical reference                                               material techniques and many       Medical transcription is no           more.                              longer merely listening and            Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com Kevin Erickson is a contributing writer for: www.total-transcription.com and www.eyeonnursing.com and www.totalparalegal.com. 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