MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTIONISTS Medical transcriptionists perform technical clerical work in transcribing medical cases. They transcribe clinical reports, test results, and other information from voice dictation. They work in many hospitals and other facilities and some work right out of their own home. I believe this is a very good career to get into for many reasons. Medical transcriptionists are not just typists or secretaries; their skills are not as simple as theirs. A medical transcriptions is a medical language specialist who interprets and transcribes medical records from tapes in order to compile written documentation of medical information on individual patient cases.
They use a transcribing machine with headset and foot pedal, listen to recording by physicians and other HealthCare professionals dictating a variety of medical reports. They have a good command of English grammar and know thousands of words of highly technical medical vocabulary. They are good listeners and they need to be able to understand many different foreign accents. They are very skilled workers being that they need to know so much. I choose this career because it looked interesting to me and I enjoy typing and learning medical abbreviations. I learned of this career at the Career Expo this year.
I was interested immediately. It seemed to be a fun, easy, moderately good paying job, so I decided to do my research paper on medical transcriptionists so I can learn more about the profession I would like to get into. Since medical transcriptionists deal with a lot of grammar and medical terminology, they are many educational requirements. You must have a high school diploma or something equivalent to it. Some helpful high school courses include English, biology, anatomy and some type of typing class. It is also preferred that you graduate from an accredited school for medical records terminology.
There are many different colleges and business schools that have courses in Medical Transcription. Some include Carnage College, Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College, Fox Valley Technical College, Texas AM University, and Andrews School for Medical Transcription. Some of the college courses you should take might be medical vocabulary / anatomy , microcomputer applications, communications, general anatomy and physiology, medical machine transcription, and medical systems and procedures. The personal requirements to be a medical transcriptions include interest in medicine, medical language and its usage, ability to listen closely to what people say, interest in computers and typing, have excellent spelling and memory skills, and enjoy a problem. Another personal requirement may be that you must be able to type between 60 and 90 words per minute.
There are not many physical requirements for this job, you just need to be healthy enough to sit at a desk 40 hours or more a week. Some opportunities for advancement for experienced medical transcriptionists include self-employment or home worker, transcription service owner (MS TO), and medical transcription. The American Association for Medical Transcription awards the voluntary designation, Certified Medical Transcriptions, to those who earn passing scores on written and practical examinations. With this certification they have a better chance of succeeding in this field. Medical transcriptionists’ yearly salary starts at about $25, 000-$40, 000.
Many experienced professionals earn up to $80, 000 per year, working at home. Earnings all depend on education, experience, and geographic location. A study done in 1997 showed that 24% of annual growth salaries were over 35, 000, 34% were from 25, 000 to 35, 000, and 42% were under 25, 000. Employment outlook looks good for medical transcriptionists as the demand is expected to increase as the need for health care and industries that provide it grow. Growing numbers of medical transcriptionist will be needed to amend patients’ records, edit for grammar, and discover mistakes in medical records. The areas for employment include clinics, doctors offices, hospitals, insurance companies, private transcription companies, and self-employment…
They are needed all over the world, in many different countries and states. There are no fringe benefits that I could find. Of course there is medical insurance just like any other job. I would really enjoy getting into this career field. It seems like a very complicated but fun job. There are many schools I can choose from to go to.
There are many areas of employment that I can choose from. Overall I believe this is a great career to get into.