More insight
Posted By: QA on 2006-11-29
In Reply to: Need to vent . . . - flying fingers
In my experience, I have come across many QA who are not that good. They don't know the BOS. I have wondered how quite a few even became QA. I know that there is a lot of differences between QA. I've experienced it personally as an MT and as a QA. I would like to see companies start going toward a base hourly pay for QA. It seems lately the industry standard is becoming production pay for QA. I might work on 10 accounts in one day; all with their own style preferences. On production pay, it is difficult to keep all the P's and Q's straight. If an MT messes up or overlooks demographics, it takes time to fix that. In the time it takes to correct demographics for me, I could type a 30-line report. Fixing demographics, looking up doctors names (even though they are easily found but left blanked) takes a lot of time. It is hard to leave positive feedback when most QA these days are being rushed.
Keep in mind that most of the reports sent to QA are not the easy ones. We should see the hardest dictators and the drugs that sometimes seems impossible to find. So I could see a 30-line report (at 5 cpl) with only one blank. But that one blank may be extremely tough. It might take me 15 minutes to find it. On production, I would not give it that much effort. On hourly pay, I would spend the time to research it. So keep in mind that it would only take a few minutes to type the whole report but the time it takes to research this one blank might be 5-10 times longer. Paid production, far lower than typing. I simply made more money as an MT.
The production pay for QA is happening because simply there are some QA staff that abused the hourly pay system. They didn't work. They didn't do their required amount of reports. So the bad apples out there have spoiled the whole bunch.
I feel frustrated myself lately with the industry as a whole. If I'm not QA'ing overseas MTs who do not understand American slang, than I'm being production to find the impossible words on the hard ESLs.
I've worked with many QA over my career. I've seen some good QA and I've seen some that are just really rotten. They don't know anything about style. They shouldn't be in QA.
I worry sometimes that correcting something according to the proper guidelines is going to cause conflict because there are some rules to the BOS that not a lot of QA are aware of.
I do agree that QA needs to be uniform in their feedback. It would make my life easier as a QA as well.
But also keep in mind that some things in our field that there are 3 right ways to do it.
One example is the word followup. Now follow-up used to be an adjective. It is being tossed out lately. It is still NOT wrong but the BOS is leaning toward removing it all together. So why not just let it go and use followup instead?
You might see one QA correct it and another leave it. Neither are wrong.
It is almost impossible to input the BOS with your companies preferences on a ver batim account and not make someone mad at you! 
My advice, ask where they document their correction from so that you may look up the rule yourself for future reference?
If you can, email and say where in the Book of Style may I find this or account specifics, etc.
Best wishes to all of you and please keep this in mind that a lot of QA are being pushed to their limits and we don't make enough money. We are supposed to be superior MTs (which is why we are in QA). But most of us don't make near as much as we did typing.
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Thank you so much on the insight
into QA. We MTs do resent you sometimes. When I get a correction back, I always try to say thank you. Sometimes we MTs just forget that QA is human. You need a pat on the back sometimes.
More insight
I do respect and hope to learn from QA but at times the conflicting ways of doing things are extremely confusing. Something needs to be done so QA makes a good living without driving the MT crazy. I would never want the responsibility of QA. I use the BOS often but even parts of that are confusing when you are told type verbatim as very few doctors speak in perfect grammar. I once typed a phrase -- the doctor dictated exactly as it was listed in BOS so I typed as such and QA faulted me in regards to where the comma was placed. Heck it was that way in the BOS. There is just too much stress for the amount of money we get both QA and MT. There are days when I do my best and think I did right by the BOS yet QA will say different and I think have to wonder what is expected at 7 cents or 8 cents a line. The stress of the industry just is not worth the pay. I go over every report at least 2 times to be as accurate as possible and I still get faulted for things that according to BOS are not wrong. Like one person said one QA will say that is correct good job and the next QA even within the same company will say the total opposite about the exact same thing. It is just mad. I don't know how QA can keep so many doctors rules straight in their heads, especially those hospital accounts. I respect the nice/helpful QA people -- you have a lot on your plates!
Thanks for your insight . . .
this is the only mistake she found on my review.
Some insight please
My company is giong to be offering to train on voice recognition/speech. I currently do straight typing but I am going to take them up on the offer to get cross-trained for the experience.
I will at first admit I really don't know much about VR. It seems to me that the doctor transcribes, the computer transcribes it and then the MT listens and makes sure the document is correct? Is that what this is? Is it really that difficult?
I'm am not trying to cause waves but I would just like some clarification/insight on this. Thanks so much!
Thank you all so very much for your valuable insight
A job like this will not come my way perhaps.
I remember the days when 2-5 jobs for MTs would be in the Classified section of the newspapers and it was a matter of deciding which specialty we wanted to be in or whether to work in a physician's office or the local hospital medical records department.
Thank you
Thanks for you valuable insight -
...
thank you for giving me insight on this
I can see now about your point on the certain days there is more work because this company does handle clinic work. I really don't want to sell myself short. I have been looking a year if that tells you anything!! it sounds like they didn't have much to offer somone. She did tell me "her ladies that work for her do not have that much experience." Thank you for listening. I don't feel quite as bad now about marking yet another off my list.
Thank you all. This gives me some insight into what to expect. nm
x
I appreciate your wisdom and insight. Brava!
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No insight but good advice....sm
.... get to a doctor now! Better safe than sorry.
BRAVO...EXCELLENT INSIGHT!! nm
x
For all the fans, very interesting insight from the writer of the show.
Shonda Rhimes long take on part two:
From Shonda: It's the end of the episode (as we know it)
Original Airdate: 2-12-06
So Dylan’s dead.
And I have to admit, I’m a teeny bit relieved.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Kyle Chandler. He was great as Dylan. Smart, funny, cute, and very much in charge. I was, in fact, a little bit in love with Dylan. Not as in love as I am with McDreamy or Burke but…you know, there were moments during the filming of the episodes when Dylan would be saying something bossy or helping Mer down the hall, pushing that gurney and being all bomb squad-y, moments that I was thinking, hey, maybe he doesn’t have to explode.
But still I am relieved. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here’s why:
At the end of Act Five, there is a scene. Scene 52. I wrote this scene about fifteen minutes before I had to print out the script and hand it over to production. It reads as follows:
INT. OR CORRIDOR -- CONTINUOUS
Meredith leans her head out. Sees Dylan heading down the hall. She's just about to open her mouth...
...When the ammo explodes. When Dylan explodes. Fire, shattering glass. Meredith is thrown backwards.
Okay, that’s…what? An eighth of a page? A sixteenth of a page? A tiny fraction of the script, right?
The ammo explodes.
Dylan explodes.
I wrote those words and was actually ignorant enough of the horrors to come that I gave it to the production team and then slept the sleep of babies and angels for several nights in a row.
The ammo explodes.
Dylan explodes.
Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
All of the sudden, you find yourself in meetings with real live bomb squad guys and special effects guys and a very tense director and everyone is asking you things like “When you say, bloody rain…you actually want bloody rain or just like, some blood spatter?” And things like “When Dylan explodes, you wanna see chunks of Dylan or do you want like, a Dylan vapor?”
These are thing I don’t want to think about. These are things that make my head hurt. The ammo explodes. Dylan explodes. It’s in the script. I wrote it. I know that. But I don’t want to think about Dylan chunks or bloody rain. I don’t want to think about it at all. I like to write things and have them happen. I like to keep myself in a kind of stalker-ish fog in which I believe my characters aren’t characters but actual people. It’s how I can write them. So when you ask me about Dylan chunks, my brain gets all twisty and shuts down. Because Dylan’s a person, a very real person to me and I love him and it’s not my fault he has to die and besides…yuck.
But I’ve got Rob Corn on my ass.
Rob Corn doesn’t care if I try to kick everyone out of my office when they bring up bloody rain or he doesn’t care if I try to pretend I can’t speak English when someone asks me about bloody chunks. Rob Corn is the producer on our show and it’s his job to make things happen and, if I am stupid enough to write Dylan explodes on a piece of paper, Rob Corn is damn well going to make sure that Dylan explodes. Behind his back, I like to call Rob Corn Bossy McBossy. It doesn’t sound affectionate here but in real life, it’s really sweet and kind. Trust me. Anyway, Bossy McBossy told me that we had to do tests so we could figure out how exactly Dylan explodes.
Tests? Dylan explodes. What’s there to test? HA! I’m clearly an idiot.
They built this model of Dylan’s body and one day I am herded out onto the back lot of the studio at the request of Bossy McBossy Rob Corn. Then I have to stand and watch as 20 or 30 really happy guys (testosterone is a powerful thing) position the model of Dylan just right and explode it into tiny little pieces. Twice. It is very loud. Wow. Dylan explodes. I’m all, “great, thanks, way to go, very manly.” And I turn to flee, prepared to head back to my office, happy that the Dylan explodes part of this is over so I can pay attention to the other stuff, the estrogen stuff, the fun stuff like Bailey and George giving birth and Derek describing that kiss to Meredith…
…But Rob Corn raises an eyebrow and very gently says, “Uh, Shonda?” and I go really still with horror. Because I suddenly start to realize that a) that little test was only the beginning and b) that, for the rest of my life, I was going to regret ever typing the words Dylan explodes into my computer.
They blew up test dummies. Tall dummies, dusty dummies, dummies with helmets, dummies without helmets. They blew up test dummies filled with fake blood. They blew up pieces of our set. They set off an explosion on the set of our operating rooms. They used stunt girls and stunt guys. Ellen let them pull her through the air. I think there were blue screens and green screens and animated pieces of debris and glass. The genius special effects guys added fire and smoke and things I can’t imagine but things that made it amazing. The sound guys added over 100 layers of sound elements so that, if you have HD and you watch with surround sound speakers, the explosion flies at you and passes you and swirls around you.
Dylan explodes.
The explosion was beautiful. Amazing work and truly impressive. I told everyone so. I can’t believe the amount of talent and energy that come together to make this show happen. But next time I get a Super Bowl and post-Super Bowl time slot, I’m gonna write something different. Something a bit easier. Something less time-consuming and expensive. And without so many bloody chunks.
Dylan puts the ammo down and goes to have a sandwich.
Enough about Dylan, may he rest in peace. I want to tell you about the difference between the first episode titled “It’s the End of the World” and the second episode “(As We Know It)”.
I tried really hard to make the first episode very male and the second episode very female. I wanted them to fit together, like puzzle pieces. So that I could have two episodes about the same thing but that felt very different from one another. The first episode is all amped up energy, all naked girls and screaming and bombs and running down hallways and men saying things like “Get out of my OR.” The second episode is all long pauses. Long pauses and sitting and pushing out babies and kissing in linen closets and lots of discussion about how the hell this is all going to end. The first episode is what happens when danger strikes. The second episode is how we deal with danger when it strikes. The epicenter of this episode is the hallway/gurney scene. It’s the first scene I envisioned at all when thinking of these two episodes. I kept saying, “there needs to be this scene where Meredith and Cristina move down the hall really slowly with the ammo and Dylan and talk about boys.” And everyone kept nodding very politely with tight smiles the way they do when they are sure you have gone off the deep end. But Elizabeth Klaviter (she’s our super smart medical researcher) got on the phone with the bomb squad guys and the doctors and she got them to tell her how this would be possible. How I could get that gurney rolling so Meredith and Cristina could discuss the state of Cristina’s relationship. I needed that discussion which, for me, is really just a big old metaphor for how we deal with the tragedies in life. You’ve got your hand on a bomb but you don’t want to talk about it over and over, you don’t want to face it – so you talk about something else. Most of life is talking about something else. Plus, I found this really cool song by The Greenskeepers that I was dying to use.
George is a big key to this episode. If you pay attention, he’s the one who serves as our witness. Through most of the episode, he wanders around, a bit bewildered. He’s the one who feels the most helpless. And then he has that moment with Hannah where she talks about the nature of cowardice, where she says that to do nothing is to be a coward. And he acts. He helps Bailey through giving birth. In the first episode, he’s fantasizing about what it would be like to see three women in the shower. In the second episode, he sees what three women in a shower is like in reality. Because, guys, women don’t just climb in a shower and start soaping each other up for no reason. Hello!? Life isn’t porn. Life is Meredith, bloody and battered, being gently cleaned off (chunks of Dylan) by her best friends. And so he leaves. Because what he is seeing is too intimate.
The last thing I want to say about this episode has to do with Meredith. Because all she really wants is some kind of reason to live. I’ve heard a lot of talk about Meredith being whiny but the truth is, she’s got a mom with Alzheimer’s, no other family to speak of, and the man she loves is married. She’s pretty freaking lonely, people. She’s got a right to get her whine on. So, when she falters, when she doesn’t want to pull her hand out of Mr. Carlson, it’s partly because she’s got nothing to hang on to. As she says in the first episode, she needs a reason to go on, she needs some hope. Which is why she has to picture Derek to get through it. And at the end, when he shows up at her house (and he shows up just to see for himself that she is alive), she has to ask. She has to ask him about their last kiss because if she’s ever going to get out of that bed again and keep going, she needs a reason. She needs to know there’s someone out there for her. She needs some hope. And Derek (can Patrick Dempsey be any more amazing?) describes that last kiss, the last kiss they had as a happy couple, in such perfect detail that Meredith knows she’ll be okay. Because he wouldn’t remember that kiss so well if he didn’t love her. He couldnt. Its her sign.
He loves her. Even if he can’t be with her. Even if he has a wife.
He loves her, people.
I told you, there’s hope.
I can’t promise you anything because, like I said earlier, the characters are alive for me and thus, I can’t make them do anything against their will. But my fingers and toes are crossed for the Mer/Der love…
Once again, thanks for watching the show.
Thanks so much for the insight and advice, guys, I really appreciate it, books are informative but
when you are in the at-home world like we are, there's nothing better than getting it straight from people who have been there!
Very eloquently put! You have an EXCELLENT insight into what's going on in today's MT environm
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