AAMT has rules on punctuation that are a great help.
Posted By: sm on 2005-12-24
In Reply to: This is in regards to the post below about AAMT list on q.i.d.....plesae read - need to know
Review them??!!??!!?!
Okay, I didn't renew with them this year, but it still doesn't negate the fact that you could use a calming influence. If AAMT causes you stress, remove it from your memory banks rather than fretting about it. It is what it is.
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They (AAMT) made the rules for years until the internet
and those of us who had been isolated in the past got to know each other on line. We started to discuss this and other issues, and figured out that AAMT is a bunch of bottom feeding scheisters ripping us off while enjoying themselves in Hawaii at their "convention" most likely being paid for at least in part by the dues, fees, and other drummed up charges for useless crap they've gotten out of us before we figured out what a huge money-grubbing hoax their "organization" is.
AAMT constantly changes the rules every time they have a new edition of their BOS to sell.
They've been taking advantage of MT's for years and have no shame. I want no part of it, and never have.
AAMT 2nd ed. finally adopted the rules the AMA and CBE style guides
use numerals (except at beginning of sentence). It conveys numerical information quickly when one sees the numbers rather than the word.
I don't know of a standard national font and size.
AAMT Book of Style 2 is a great investment
for a student MT. While some companies may not use it, most certainly do for their initial testing on hiring - including the grammar sections. Go for it! One can never have too many books! 
Punctuation
I would punctuate:
I told him to clean the area with hydrogen peroxide; and, after that he can apply the Neosporin ointment.
No, it is your punctuation. nm
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Punctuation question
Which is correct, longhaul truck driver, long-haul truck-driver, long haul truck driver?
Quick punctuation help!
I told him to clean the area with hydrogen peroxide, and, after that, he can apply the Neosporin ointment.
How would the punctuation be on this sentence? Did I do it right?
Thanks in advance for the help..
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much for the help!
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks, I have been doing a grammer course.
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much!
Quick punctuation help! sm
Sorry, but it does not seem you received much help here. The truth is every typist has her own style. It seems that quite a few want to place a comma every time the doc pauses to take a breath or shifts a page. If that is what your own doc prefers, then go for it. Most do not, however.
Grammatically, you may use commas or not in this sentence, but none are necessary. It has been my own experience that doctors would rather have less rather than more in the case of commas. Believe it or not.
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much for the advice!
Is question about punctuation? (sm)
If so, I'd change it to:
MUST HAVE: Two years' experience.
Transcriptionists that do not know punctuation
I just had a dictation in which the doctor specified (correctly) where the quotation marks were in relation to the period at the end of the sentence and stated that he was tired of having to correct reports where it was incorrectly placed. I was aghast! How could anybody transcribe and not know elementary punctuation?
punctuation problems
HI,
I am taking my medical transcription course through Allied Schools. I am having a problem trying to punctuate the dictations properly. I would like to know if anyone can help me with this problem. What I thought was proper punctuation seems to be different with medical transcription. Are we supposed to transcribe the punctuation as the doctor dictates or correct it to what we believe is correct?
Also, I have an assignment that I just transcribed that is impossible for me to punctuate. If anyone can help me, I would truely appreciate it.
Grammar/Punctuation
I would mark it as a grammar/punctuation error, however they both hold the same weight score-wise, so it really doesn't matter if you call it g/p or spelling. If it were a case of having 2 different point values, I would go with the lesser of the 2 - I always try to give the MTs the break.
punctuation issues
I was very careful about punctuation until I had to research things and found that the MTs at my hospital NEVER use commas. I could barely understand some of the long, strung out sentences. I always researched obscure medical terms to make sure my work was accurate, yet I make $10 less an hour than others there because the pools are set up so some MTs get the profitable work before the rest of us. The point of this is, I don't feel that my excellent work is appreciated, and I don't believe the pool situation is fair, so I just do minimum to get by. I also work IC to supplement my income, and my IC work is much better because I feel appreciated.
Docs and punctuation
Regarding the posts down the list about the docs who dictate run-on sentences or add bunches of periods, etc. I am wondering why they are not instructed to not include punctuation at all. Our company has us disregard what they say anyway (since it is usually way off), and it seems they are making it extra rough on themselves.
I have one who says comma practically every other word. It really threw me off at first, but now I hardly even hear it (so used to ignoring it). But think how much easier it would be for them to not even think about it. What works the best is when they just use their voice inflection to signal the end of one thought/subject and the beginning of another. Being someone without a whole lot of medical background, it gets confusing when they don't.
Why is it no one seems to communicate with the dictators about such things?
You are not wrong, Punctuation goes
inside the quotation marks.
Need help with punctuation and caps
I have MS Word 2003. This program has always capitalized the first letter after a colon (:) and for some reason today it stopped. I cannot figure this out for the life of me. I have been in Tools, etc, and see nothing that addresses this problem. If anyone has had this problem and knows how to correct it, please enlighten me. LOL
TYIA
Misspelled words, punctuation
I would love to be an Editor some day, love reading the typos in the newspapers, etc. However, I nor anyone else is perfect and we all have our days. On the other hand it depends on what you are accustomed to. I have typed radiology periodically and on one account told to use punctuation where needed and another account that I worked clinic in-house radiology was told by the radiologists not to use punctuation unless they told us to because it could change the meaning of the sentence. So, I obliged and no longer use punctuation unless it is dictated to me. Unless I hear differently I will continue to do as I am told.
Per BOS2 - there are spaces, no punctuation between T N M (nm)
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There are misspellings and punctuation errors.
NM
Punctuation "is not important"?!!
Consider these sentences:
The patient said her mother is insane.
The patient, said her mother, is insane.
Two commas that completely reverse the meaning of the sentence. We are not merely "word-slammers". We are expected to convey the meaning of the spoken word, and that is the role of punctuation. Punctuation substitutes for the pauses, etc. that are used in spoken speech to convey how the words are to be interpreted.
I'm no fan of the BOS by any means, but I can't agree with the extreme statements you make here, either.
You don't have to be an "English major" to know the fundamentals of proper punctuation, either. You should have learned that in grade school. And if they ever do scrap the BOS, you can be sure no one is going to scrap the basic rules of English grammar that you're expected to know and apply.
All that punctuation nit-pickiness was brought about by
They needed a reason to do it. (And to sell their anal little BOS). Get everyone so freaked-out about commas and semicolons that they either quit, or their production falls off and they can be 'justifiably' let go, forcing the 'poor MTSO' to have to look offshore for bodies to fill their sweatshops.
All that punctuation nit-pickiness was brought about by
They needed a reason to do it. (And to sell their anal little BOS). Get everyone so freaked-out about commas and semicolons that they either quit, or their production falls off and they can be 'justifiably' let go, forcing the 'poor MTSO' to have to look offshore for bodies to fill their sweatshops.
Verbatim radiology. Should I not punctuate when punctuation is clearly indicated?
Should I leave it up to the doctors to add their punctation for this verbatim account? Not putting commas around the word "however" is driving me crazy!
...your E-mails have to have proper English and punctuation.
Am I alone?
Are you from India? Your punctuation and grammar are giving you away. nm
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We don't correct grammar or punctuation on this board...nm
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Re: expanding with punctuation, more info inside
I have been working on this platform for over a year and absolutely LOVE it. It is not the same as autocorrect expansions. This platform offers a LOT more.
I will type this directly from my manual to explain how the ESP abbreviations are expanded:
Press or type a delinter (a spacebar, enter, period, colon, semicolon, comma, question mark or exclamation point) that is appropriate to the sentence text or punctuation. The exapansion appears AS SOON AS you type the delimiter.
You can highlight entire sentences, paragraphs, etc and enter them directly into the ESP list and make a short abbrev. to retrieve them.
To add an ESP, press control, control and type it directly in, or highlight text in your document and then press control control and name your short abbreviation for it.
Sometimes, depending if your sentences are really LONG you will have to copy/paste directly into ESP and then give it a short.
In addition, with ESPs you can format words to be BOLD by inserting a tag. You can also put a tag in for something underlined, italic, etc. They also allow you to insert pauses and backups in your ESP so that you can type yof and get the hyphen first -year-old female.
Pauses are really neat when you want to nest an ESP inside another one. For example: if you put the following entries in your ESP:
lt (left)
tphp (The patient had pain in the)
(The ESPs need to first be created and exist)
Now you type the abbreviation containing the pause then press spacebar. The sentence expands to the point of pause and then type the abbreviation you want to nest, press the spacebar and hit enter. The complete next appears in your document. Believe me, this is something Autocorrect cannot do and really comes in handy especially when you have really repitious dictators who always give the same order on vital signs, etc.
You can also run a microsoft word macro as part of an expansion if you want. There is a special dialog box that the ESP uses for this.
ESPs also allow suffixes to be added to root words (another feature) but this is something I haven't used much yet.
You can also create more than one list of ESPs (can have 2 open at a time).
This platform also allows you to make "normals" for really long documents. Say you have a 2 page op report that a doctor will use over and over. You can just bring the entire document in. You can edit these normals at any time. These are like templates that you can insert jump codes, all your headings, numbering formats, etc.
On this board, I've been reading a lot about how people run to buy either Instant Text or ShortHand (as these are compatible with Dictatphone) but this is not something you have to run out and purchase. The ESPs offer a lot more than autocorrect.
So far, my one list of ESPs has over 20,000 entries and my line counts daily for 8 hours average between 1500 and 1800. Not bad.
The platform is REALLY easy to work from as another poster said you can pull up previous dictation from another Transcriptionist and copy/paste directly into the document you are typing. This is a really great feature when you have those really lousy dictators who pretty much say the same physical exam, etc. You can then just follow along and edit as you go.
It really is easy to use, and personally I love the Expander and have no complaints. Good luck.
Well, grammar/punctuation can dramatically alter meaning, so it IS important. nm
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Oh, someone benefits from AAMT - AAMT DOES!
x
that would be same rules not some.
nm
different rules
for different settings. Cinics are allowed to use abbreviations pretty freely as to where hospitals are not for a lot of things due to possible misinterpretation. It all boils down to the fact that they are paying you and what they say goes!
BOS rules
I am an 18 year MT and I just recently heard of this Book of Style. What exactly is it? Doesn't the style depend on the program the account has. I've used several plateforms, and just about each one is styled differently, so what is the point of BOS? Old school MT!
BOS rules
I have been reading these comments. I have gone round and round with my employer over why the BOS rules are BS. But, I think the reason they keep changing things is because the doctors are getting cheaper and cheaper and don't want to pay anything for quality. That's just my little opinion.
BOS RULES
Well, if the BOS states "disk is the correct spelling, but I have a Rad who went to Med school and was taught disc and discectomy and discitis, who am I to tell him he now has to change it because the AAMT has a "book" that says otherwise. I still spell out my numbers up to 9 just like I was taught in typing class way back in 1982. So far, I've been lucky. My Rads like it their way and they pay me.
They do seem to have a lot of rules.
I saw on the other board, they'd like their own board..... Yeah, okay! 
Name rules
I believe you can use relative names - first names - but just not the patient's. Can your QA give you any guidance on this? I know the company I work for has very specific rules about what can and cannot go in a report, etc.
MQ Rules, literally! Go MQ!
nm
follow the rules
I too thought crepitus was the only correct form -- until the pediatric rheumatologist "corrected" me and insisted on crepitance. (As the Red Queen says, "All ways here are MY ways.")
New Rules For The Office
New Rules For The Office - Effective Immediately!
SICK DAYS: We will no longer accept a doctor statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
SURGERY: Operations are now banned. As long as you are an employee here, you need all your organs. You should not consider removing anything. We hired you intact. To have something removed constitutes a breach ofemployment.
DRESS CODE: It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary,if we see you wearing $350 Prada sneakers & carrying a $600 Gucci bag, we assume you are doing well financially and therefore you do not need a raise.
PERSONAL DAYS: Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday & Sunday.
VACATION DAYS: All employees will take their vacation at the same time every year. The vacation days are as follows: Jan. 1, July 4 & Dec. 25
BEREAVEMENT LEAVE: This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or coworkers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hourearly, provided your share of the work is done enough.
OUT FROM YOUR OWN DEATH: This will be accepted as an excuse. However, we require at least two weeks motice as it is your duty to train your own replacement.
RESTROOM USE: Entirely too much time is being spent in the restroom. In the future, we will follow the practice of going in alphabetical order. For instance, all employees whose names begin with 'A will go from8 to 8:20, employees whose names begin with 'B' will go from 8:20to 8:40 and so on. If you're unable to go at your allotted time, it will be necessary to wait until the next day when your turn comes again. In extreme emergencies employees may swap their timewith a coworker. Both employees' supervisors in writing must approve this exchange.
LUNCH BREAK: Skinny people get an hour for lunch as they need to eat more so that they can look healthy, normal size people get 30 minutes for lunch to get a balance meal to maintain their average figure. Fat people get 5 minutes for lunch because that's all the time needed to drink a Slim Fast & take a diet pill.
Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience.
Have a nice week.
read what rules??
OK I'm a guy but I don't know if I have been counted. 40/7 that's nothing. I have 3 sisters.
HIPAA rules
A lot of the national transcription services have many accounts where the hospitals/docs still want the name of the patient in the body of the report and do not want "the patient" in the body of the report. So the facilities still respect what the doctors want.
RULES ON POSTING
Unless the moderator makes remarks what we post I am going to post what I want to. If we were in an office we probably would have a discussion about American Idol, family, relationships. I feel this board has been helpful when you feel isolated all by yourself all day transcribing. I have learned alot of information that was not related to transciption over the past years.
Definitely need to set some rules and stick to them -
I also had contractors working in my house a few years ago, so I can totally relate. The phone was also ringing off the hook. I had people knocking on the door (contractors) at all hours because they knew I was here. I finally just about had a nervous breakdown and told my husband if he did not take some of these calls or come home to meet some of these people I was quitting my job. Low and behold, he took the wheel and I got to actually sit and work. He said he did not realize how stressed I was over all this. Maybe this will work for you? Good luck. :-)
They don't have set rules for saving
I've never had to set rules to get them to save money. My kids generally save most of what they receive without me telling them to, and they just aren't into shopping and spending money.
I assume they've learned from my example because I'm pretty good with money myself and don't spend extravagantly.
JLG RULES to those who have a clue
I am amazed and not surprised at how many children we have out here who apparently have not cut it with JLG and now have to bad mouth one of the finest companies there is and I know it! I have had many of my former MT's come to work here -they are making wonderful pay....but perhaps that is because they work?! They aren't sitting on the message boards crying the blues because they didn't listen, couldn't follow simple rules, and probably lied about the length of experience as an MT so they were FIRED!! JLG is one of the finest companies there is. The work flow staff and owners are the finest I have every had the pleasure to work for and I have been in this industry as a CMT and now QA for 22 years. They pay ridiculously HIGH and you have to have knowledge to make it with them. Stop saying things that aren't true THEY DO NOT run CREDIT CHECKS> FOOL THAT YOU ARE... if you cant cut it as an MT why understand this...JLG asks for a social security# simply to make sure that you belong to that SS# and that you are not an illegal alien  working with someone else's SS#, also to ensure that you do not have any delinquent tax liens with IRS because by law they can not employ you as an IC and not pay uncle Sam because if you have not paid taxes before , well that says it all right there. So don't run your toilet when you don't know what you are talking about. What would they care about your light bill, phone bill or any bills on your credit report. That makes no sense but neither does anything negative I have read about JLG. So do yourself a favor, stop trying to work for a top notch company until you build your resume. Perhaps go to an accredited school and learn to be an MT and stop taking mail order courses that get you know where but broke and without a job to pay the student loan back. Anyone wanting to be an MT at JLG should be honored to get hired and also we have more work and more accounts and more new accounts that we can not staff fast enough to keep up. Perhaps you didn't have enough work because you are one lousy MT because that's usually why you don't get work. I wish everyone working here now could here this nonsense but we are too busy to do what you do all day which is make up fairy tales. Apply with JLG. Do yourself the favor don't listen to people that are just disgruntled because they couldn't make the grade. And contrary to MS Opinion....QA knows about everything at JLG. We have to baby sit and grade all the work that MT's do incase they fib about the experience and we have to make sure it is all spell checked and dot their Is and Cross their T's. So QA knows everything from how much work is waiting to be typed, how much has come in and how much will be there the next week. Get off it and get real. Perhaps McDonald's is hiring. Because I make so much money I am buying myself a new 40 thousand dollar vehicle in 3 weeks and let me say this I made just that in the past 6 months.  Sorry it didn't work out Now get over it and if you don't like other peoples opinions STAY OFF THE BOARD Back to my life. Sorry you couldn't have one too. By the way I wont be back I do have work to do! I just had to come see for myself at the clown like stuff written about our wonderful  company.
New rules? Hmmm....sm
Since you seem to be a theological expert on all religions maybe you could enlighten us with facts instead of sarcasm and assumptions.
I'm seriously not trying to sound snarky, but after just coming off another forum I go to, there was a similar post. Everyone preaches tolerance should be given to all groups except for Christians.
Actually, we do let our daughter Trick or Treat, but I challenge anyone to look up the origins of All Hallows Eve. There are evil roots and I actually feel like a hypocrit partaking of it because of my own personal convictions (and would never judge anyone else for it) and belief based on what I've studied from the Bible, whose rules by the way go back over 6,000 years. Not what I'd call new and not made by man. Maybe you should study Christianity so that you have the facts before making assumptions.
I apologize if I offended you. It was not my intention. It's just hard seeing your faith ridiculed, disrespected, and slammed on every secular board you go to.
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