I have Dorland's -- prefer it for no particular reason.

• what kind of medical dictionary CD ..... - luvmyboys
  • I have Dorland's -- prefer it for no particular reason. - MSMT
    • I was dedicated to Dorland's... - pdqtrans

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and Tessier's The Surgical Word Book, 3rd edition.  Books you could buy used I would say would be Stedman's Pathology and Lab Medicine and Cardiology/Pulmonary word book.  These are all the books I use the most during my day.  You could buy other speciality word books as you need them and could probably go used with those.

I wouldn't bother with buying a drug book, new editions come out every year and I just stick to the FDA website and RXList as my drug references.

Also FYI, not a book, but I use my Stedman's Electronic Medical Dictationary a lot.  It's easier to open the program than it is to pick up a huge 30-pound dictionary.

and why.

Stedman's surgical equipment book.  The Surgery Word book is pretty well useless, but the equipment book is fabulous.

I have had a Tessier's and I gave it away, found it completely useless.

... but I am doing radiology.  I worked at home doing hospital work for 4-5 years, and it wasn't interesting enough.  There wasn't enough variety for me.  I could see problems that I would be sooooo good at fixing if I was working in-house, but there was no way for me to have an impact on quality issues working at home.  I now get to improve the referrer database, look at the future schedule to look for missing referrer names, work with schedulers, techs and radiologists, and just do lots of little things that really add polish to our business, and are very satisfying to me. 

To each her own. 

I prefer reference books, as all my work stays in one spot in my office.  Have tried the CDs in the past but didn't care for them.  I can understand wanting the convenience of having everything on a laptop since it sounds like you move around frequently.  Guess it depends on the work sutation.

I personally prefer an ESL to a native English speaker any day of the week.  At least I know with an ESL, I am dealing with a tougher ear level, a level not many folks can do or are willing to do, and 99% of the time, they happen to be the best dictators out there, they don't rush their dictation or speak half-thoughts/utter a sound that means 10 words, they do their best to speak clearly...all I need to do is learn their accent and clean up their grammar. 

I have only 1 current ESL who speed talks with a thick accent...Just 1 of out say 50+ that I handle between 5 acute care accounts.  I handle a lot more ESLs than that due to the logistics of 3 accounts being major city hospitals, but I didn't want it to seem an inflated, BS number. 

In the long run, my willingness and desire to deal with ESLs allows me to build my ear skills further.  When it comes time to job hunt, that little line on my resume, Heavy ESL experience gets my foot in the door to show what I am able to hear and do, making me a bit more marketable.  Don't get me wrong, MOST ESLs I can handle.  Russian accent still leaves me saying WHAT?!?!  but hey, at least I am willing to try to step up to that battle to conquer and learn them.

I worked for a company that NO ONE wanted to transcribe the 52 ESLs.  I kid you not.  The TAT on those files was disgusting.  MTs would actually refuse to transcribe them.  I took them on, they became my primary workload, my preferred work.  I'd log in for the day, my supervisor would ask me what I wanted for "breakfast" as she read me off the list of who she had.  I had the freedom to choose back then, and let me tell you, it was CAKE, I was loving it and laughing all the way to the bank.  My queue for the day was set with just about 120 minutes of assorted accents, my daily line requirement, as a part timer, exceeded the full-time requirement.  I never ran out of work, I never NEEDED to worked late, never felt pressured, and didn't have to worry about leaving a blank, for it became clear to my supervisor/QA/team leader, as well as the CMT/owner, that if I couldn't get that blank, there was no way they could either.   I took care of my supervisor/QA/team leader and she took care of me, we were in a win-win situation.  But, that job is gone now, as the company folded and closed its doors.  My comfort zone is gone.

Currently, I work for 2 nationals.  They do not filter and distribute files broken down between ESL and native English speakers.  I pull my daily workloads from a pool, so I never know who I will end up with.  It's in my own best interest NOT to shy away from an accent.

I'm from the south but lived out of the area for several years.  My favorite accents are Northeast and MidWest.  For a while I did MT for a hospital in rural Alabama where a resident from Cuba was working.  He had acquired a number of southern altruisms that cracked me up with his thick Hispanic accent.  I'll never forget when he treated an elderly woman who had received a rattlesnack bite to her foot through her "teenie shoes."  (if I hadn't been from the south, I wouldn't have known he was referring to "tennis shoes!")

Once my dryer needed servicing and the repair man came out.  After talking for a while I asked if he was from somewhere near southern Russia because of his accent.  He got so excited that someone knew the geographic area of his origin!  He was from a tiny little country bordering southern Russia!  (one of my neurologists was from Russia).  I love to try to place someone's accents

d~ 

I've always used Expanders already built in to program, but making a change and need to purchase an Expander (Word-based platform).  So I don't know much.  Please enlighten me.  Which do you prefer?

Thanks, guys :-)