I have an ollllld Ortho word book circa 1995

• new reference books - Tracey
  • I have an ollllld Ortho word book circa 1995 - tnmt

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

I type strictly ortho reports and that book has helped tremendously!! They have other books for other specialties too. They are worth every penny! 

I actually bought it from somone on this board from the classified section who was getting out of transcription.  She sold me her fifth edition and I had either 3rd or 4th...and mine was absolutely beat--definitely my most used reference book.  She gave me a heck of a deal on that and that Surgical Equipment book...another lifesaver. 

So, if you're looking for books, buy from someone on here before buying new new! 

Also agree with one of those abbreviation books as well.  Another lifesaver if you've got an account where they want all abbreviations expanded or when you get to the final diagnosis part and you HAVE to expand them. 

I know I wrote it down twice off this site and cannot find it.  The ortho/neurology? book with the stripe on the cover?

Thanks in advance!

I just started my first MT job about a month ago and I could not do without my Stedman's Orthopaedic & Rehab Words book. If in the future I get into something else I would definitely buy another one of these!

Also have Saunders Pharmaceutical Word Book, a Stedman's Medical Dictionary and The AAMT Book of Style - all very useful.

Just got a new job (!) and want to take advantage of discount books from my old job (!).  Don't know what specialties I'll be working on, general acute care AFAIK.  The only book I've ever owned is Dorland's dictionary.  I'm leaning towards Medical and Surgical Equipment.... but would be really happy if anyone has any ideas for me, thanks!

And I may just Go Wild and buy two. 

nm

I've never bought a drug book on CD/ROM but I'd like to try it.  I'm guessing it would be quicker than looking everything up in a book.  I'm trying to get away from looking things up online because everytime I stop and look something up online I end up checking email, ebay, all the boards, etc., and not focusing on my work.  They're so much temptation on the internet! 

I've bought one book (QLDB) back in 2000 so I need an update!  They sell the Saunders Drake & Drake Pharmaceutical Word Book  on CD/ROM and in the book form as a package or you can buy them separately.  I'm wondering why someone would buy both. 

Any advice before I buy would be appreciated.

Wasn't even done with schooling yet, but picked up a doctor for $.12 a line, clinic work.

Then went to a hospital in house to get more experience at ? wages (don't remember) and at the same time, picked up my second account for ENT employee w/o benefits for $200 a month (yeah, that's cheap) but it gave me experience.

Family member got sick, had to quit the hospital after 4 months, but they asked me to be the guinea pig for on-line transcribing. It worked and they kept me for 9-1/2 years at $3500 a month (no line rate, MINUTE rate- their choice). I also worked for the ENT service for 5 years and my own doc... well I'm still with him. He forced me to up my rates (yeah, that's right). He yelled at me for not charging more. He is now charged $16.5/65 cpl and he is happy. Huh? Where do you find a doctor like that?

I tried to quit the hospital to go with a national service but the hospital wanted me to stay, so I still worked for them part time for another 2 years. Then I had it with everybody and quit all of them except my own doc. It's been 15 years with him and I don't intend to give him up.

Have I been lucky? You bet!!! I have to say, for all those that don't want to work in house, there are lots of opportunities to go on your own. I got the ENT job and could have had a job with urology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and/or physical therapy had I not been only one person. 

I could have stayed an IC but needed medical insurance, so went with the national service. Private medical insurance was absolutely kiling me.

Wasn't even done with schooling yet, but picked up a doctor for $.12 a line, clinic work.

Then went to a hospital in house to get more experience at ? wages (don't remember) and at the same time, picked up my second account for ENT employee w/o benefits for $200 a month (yeah, that's cheap) but it gave me experience.

Family member got sick, had to quit the hospital after 4 months, but they asked me to be the guinea pig for on-line transcribing. It worked and they kept me for 9-1/2 years at $3500 a month (no line rate, MINUTE rate- their choice). I also worked for the ENT service for 5 years and my own doc... well I'm still with him. He forced me to up my rates (yeah, that's right). He yelled at me for not charging more. He is now charged $16.5/65 cpl and he is happy. Huh? Where do you find a doctor like that?

I tried to quit the hospital to go with a national service but the hospital wanted me to stay, so I still worked for them part time for another 2 years. Then I had it with everybody and quit all of them except my own doc. It's been 15 years with him and I don't intend to give him up.

Have I been lucky? You bet!!! I have to say, for all those that don't want to work in house, there are lots of opportunities to go on your own. I got the ENT job and could have had a job with urology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and/or physical therapy had I not been only one person. FYI, when a doctor needs a Transcriptionist to do their work, they look to hospital MTs first. All my co-workers at the hospital had jobs on the side.

I could have stayed an IC but needed medical insurance, so went with the national service. Private medical insurance was absolutely kiling me.

At that time, I charged $3 a page. I had no trouble getting that amount, and most books would be around 200-300 pages. I was a lot faster back then and could crank out a book in a couple days.

After I would type it, I would have the author check everything out and would make changes for an editing charge. If the error was mine, then no charge, but if he wanted changes, I charged editing.

There is a bit of a difference with books (unless it changed now). You would have to follow a manuscript style of writing so the book could go straight to the publishing company without the publishing company setting it up, which would cost the author more bucks.

I had worked for a publishing company that generated university textbooks back in the late 80s and that was really profitable. On those books, I was paid by the character! Sadly, my computer crashed and had to give it up. Computers back then ran around $2500 and there weren't too many gurus around to fix them. It was buy another one or do without. I had to do without since I had young'uns at that time and just couldn't spare the cash.

Hope this helps....and, BTW, if I could get back into this type of work again, I'd jump in really quick, especially the textbooks. You also get "a college education" for free.

Like you and so many others, I have watched my wages as both an IC and an employee go down, down, down.  I worked for a company owned by an MT.  She paid very good wages but sold the company to an Indian company, who got rid of all the Americans except for a few who would accept very low pay.  It's funny...clients want 100% accuracy but they don't want to pay for it.  They agree that they can't just randomly pluck people off the street to do MT, that they have to hire experienced or trained people.  But they don't want to pay us for our experience or our training.  I am doing my last MT job. I have my bachelor degree almost completed and I'm outta here.  The lack of respect for MTs, from employers, other MTs, from offshore companies, from clients, from AAMT, is so disheartening.

Changes were gradual.  First, we were allowed to start working at home at 12 cpl, instead of the hourly wage.  We still were employees and had the same benefits.  This saved the hospital money in overhead and we were all happy.  Then they started using outsourcing services for holidays and weekends.  Gradually, the whole MT dept was phased out and we had the option of going with the service handling the hospital transcription or finding another job.  The service kept us at this rate of pay for a short time and then gradually started implementing "incentive bonuses" and lowering the line rate of pay.  It evolved over the years to what it is today.  Starting line rates were lower and incentive bonuses done away with.  Health insurance is contingent on production, but their platforms crash regularly (as do many, many others) and we either have to work extra to make up the loss or just eat the financial loss altogether.  The services overhire to make sure that their TAT is met, which means unstable availability of work, which in turn affects production, in turn affecting benefits. 

The logic today behind all the changes is the "lack of experienced MTs in the U.S.", thus the need to hire people outside the country, who have even LESS experience with the English language and slang medical terms, at half the price of hiring American MTs.  The MT field in general has to be able to compete and so must lower their rates to keep clients from going offshore at half price.  And now with the advent of VR, the MTSOs using it try to justify the cut in line rate to the fact that we're no longer "typing", we're "just editing."  It's been a gradual evolution, but not in a positive direction.

And in all of this, AAMT has not come to the aid of the transcriptionist.  It has furthered the promotion of offshoring and has developed ways to enhance the MTs adjustment to VR instead of enhancing the MTs value and amount of worked involved in VR.  When the AAMT doesn't step up for the very ones it says it represents, why would the ones using the services respect, understand, or value the MT either?