I am so tired of MTing I could scream -

I am doing my very best to keep a positive outlook that something else will come along.  Anytime I see something in my local newspaper I apply.  I have also registered with agencies, but it seems like all they want to offer me are more transcription positions. 

I'm tired of looking up information because a dictator only gives you "partial" dictation, such as addresses, etc.  Do these educated human being know that there are more than one William Smith and many different ways to spell Smith.  This takes time AWAY from my fingers typing - and if that happens, I'm not making money.  I'm about ready to send it to QA with a blank and let them figure it out.

I cannot wait to get out of this business!  How do these ESLs make it out of med school?  How in the world can the professors understands them -  Oops, I'm sorry --- the professors are probably from another planet too!  

• I am so tired of MTing I could scream - - sm
  • I feel the same way. The only reason I don't - Wannie

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horrible dictation/dictators and not able to produce lines, which directly affects my paycheck.  I don't mind doing the difficult stuff, and I pretty good at it, but it is stressful and I find it very hard to budget when you never know what your paycheck is going to be.   I hate being tied to having earphones on all day.   I have children at home (I homeschool and don't have toddlers running around) and my DH works third shift so he is home during the day.  I try to work around all this, but can't always.  If I had a "desk" job I could be part of conversations at least, but having to have the earphones on you can't do that.   I get tired of being sedentary, my feet swell, my shoulders are tired, my elbows hurt, etc.  

I stick with it because of my children, and also because I like the flexibility.  I don't have to be up at 5:30 to get the kids up and ready for school, I don't have to fight traffic to get to work at 8:00.  It is a trade-off.   Sounds like you just need a break.  

  I hate my computer.

I use Windows XP and type in MS Office Word 2003.  My voice files come through VoiceWave Player by Digital Voice, Inc.  I type for several different facilities and each uses a different font, from courier which shows up thin letters to arial which shows up bolder and larger so it drives my eyes crazy to swap back and forth between accounts.  That said, when I am typing my screen shakes. The words literally shift on the screen, not the screen shaking on the desk (which it also does).  The letters also change while typine from regular to a bolder type and back.  Screen otherwise works fine, it is only about 2 years old.  If I shut down the voice wave it works fine, so it seems to be bewteen word and the waveplayer.

Anyone had this problem or have any solutions.

Do you ever just want to scream - Normally line count is around 1200 or so (depending on which system I'm using), but they put you on an account where the dictators are so bad that you end up with a 400 line count for the day.  And the dictators whose primary language is not english and they have very strong accents seem to just speed talk and the whole report sounds like just a few words when it is actually an 8 or 9 minute dictation.

Does anyone else have these days or am I just in the wrong career field.  Been doing this for 8 years and this is bad.  Yesterday at the end of the day I had such a headache and my line count was just over 400.  I quit working for the day and figured I'll get a good nights sleep and start fresh in the morning and sure enough I'm getting the same as yesterday.

Just curious if other MTs go through this too.

I thought working from home would give me more "flexibility" to be with my family; little did I know that I actually have less time with my family now than I would at a job in town. 

To take time off, it must be scheduled months in advance.  An emergency has to be cleared in advance.  I'm so bored that I'm eating to keep myself focused and awake at night.  I would cut back, but I don't earn enough to go part time.  It is harder and harder to force myself to go to work, and harder and harder to stay focused, particularly when I have a bad dictator which is more often than not.  

I think I'm so burned out I'm crispy around the edges.

I would seriously check out the descirmination laws in your state because that is exactly what this is....  Oh as a Large and Lovely girl myself, I am furious along with you.  Okay not that I would ever want to work for a company who had the moral ethics of a flea, but they need to learn that they cannot treat people like this.   Man the nerve..  

How long do you all think (with voice recognition and EMR and jobs going overseas) that MTing will be around.  I have another 20 years of my working career ahead of me, and I have been thinking maybe I should get out and work in something that will be around for the next 20 years. 

something where your medical knowledge may be worth money.  Medical

terminology worth is in the toilet in transcription for a couple of reasons.  (1) MTs are not licensed.  (2) We have no lobby.

As long as we keep "giving" the suits our knowledge at (cough, sputter) 0.17 cents a line and such, they will keep sticking it to us.  And people around the world for some stupid reason keep doing this for those low wages.

So I say let the VR people who eventually do need editors with medical knowledge, have the people who can afford to live on 0.17 cents a line in their hovels.  I did something else before I did transcription and I can do something else now.

After the VR people have gone through their cheap source and found they are more expensive than they are worth because we won't be around to clean up their lack of English, let's take a peek now and then to watch the show - how will they pull English editors out of their rearends.  Not that I care.  But it should be a fun show to watch.

I realize VR works in single practitioner offices and even in small clinics.  Where I will tune in is to watch the Mayo Clinics who have thousands of physicians and the ever-forgettable nurse practitioners (gag, pedal (bicycle pedal) edema) trying to use VR.   Let's see the slave labor, non-english-speaking, over-educated but don't know how to get in out of the rain MTs clean up that and get it back without English speaking editors. 

Right now the medical record is a very very expensive and dangerous instrument in the life of a patient.  I think it should be scrapped myself.  Some other way of combining patient medical hx should be created.  Probably not even utilizing dictation at all.  Instead creating the file through collating the tests, drug formularies from the pharmacy during the stay, specialty  reports like MRIs, etc and exit check off sheet.  I would say the doctor should do that collating - using a wand to click on what he wants in the FINAL CHART REVIEW for the patient's stay for that visit. 

That sort of thing may provide one less gossip step in lab values, radiology reports, drug names and values - that is happening now by the physician's sloppy and usually unintelligible dictation - values of which are mostly of no pertinent value to the reader and which any doctor will tell you anyway - THEY DO NOT DEPEND ON LAB VALUES ON A DICTATION...so we have wasted our time, plus probably typed wrong numbers, and added to the cost of the person's hospital stay through such a redundant and stupid exercise of having to go back and forth trying to make things out.

I am looking for an MT position with only 1 1/6 MT experience.  I am not have much luck.

I have the aircard and little experience.  

Any suggestions ?  What companies hire MTs like me who need mentoring?

rochelle

Hi there, I have been an MT for 4 1/2 years now, and I enjoy it for the most part, but I've really been thinking of finishing my BSN degree.  I had started college as a nursing major back in 1988, but dropped out after two years of completion of the prerequisite classes.  I have always had an interest in the medical field so MT'ing has been interesting, but I've really been wanting to finish up my nursing degree though, I have always regretted not finishing it.  Especially when I do the operative eports I really would like to be in the operating room working.  So, anyway, I have put my application in for the BSN program again and waiting to see if I get readmitted.  Are there are any former nurses out there who are MT'ing on this board, or perhaps any nurses doing MT'ing too who have any opinions?  Or are there any other fellow MT's going to nursing school on here and have any input about it?  If you are a previous nurse who is now a MT how come, and vice versa, if there are any MT's who are presently in nursing school please let me know how it is going for you. 

I was going to leave transcription because I was so dissatisified with the low pay, being treated like a number, constant account switching, sweatshop mentality, etc., etc., etc. After going through several different employers in the past few years, I have finally found a wonderful job and am enthusiastic about the field again. I feel it is not always the MT, or the profession, but some of these companies are just not ethical with their clients or employees.

I am glad I did not give up, but kept looking and finally fund the right fit.

There are some really great companies out there. I am planning on staying in this profession.