Not totally replaced...only for Katrina

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When I worked in someone else's office, rarely but occasionally a headset would/might break. However, since being at home doing same work 10 years, I have never had to replace my headset (the one that came with a transcriber years ago); however, I have had to replace several transcribers over the MANY, MANY years and think I'm on my 3rd one now......finally got a Lanier (they are the best in my opinion for transcriber machines).

My job has been scanning all the medical records over to electronic medium and the doctors are now taking laptops in the exam room with them and typing in all the info, so basically, my job will be obselete once this transition is over.

Our boss has been doing a comparison of the clinics who now have the electronic medical record--those docs went from dictating thousands of lines in a weekly period to less than 50!!! Of course this is a tremendous difference and it's "lights out" for us MTs. We've got about a good year before it's all done.

P.S. I didn't care so much anyhow...I hate this industry and this job, so I've been looking for other employment anyhow.

Would it be possible to set up a Katrina board? I work with a lot of the MTs, QAs, supervisors and ancillary personnel from the New Orleans area. We are all looking to make sure that our friends and coworkers from that area are safe or if they are in need, what they need. Could you set up a board so that those of us looking for people can ask about them and for displaced people to try to find some help? I think it would be greatly appreciated.

As most of you know by now, lots of the evacuees are refusing to go because they don't want to leave their pets behind. For all you you pet lovers out here, I've found two sites that are trying to help out in this area that I thought I'd pass on...

Everyone is playing the blame game. It doesn't matter who did what or did not do now. What matters now is to go on with life and reach in our hearts (Although some of you do not seem to have one) and give to the less fortunate. This disaster will not only effect those in the coastal areas. This will effect the whole United States and the world in some form or another. Louisiana had a population estimated at 4 million. More than a 1/4 of that population is without homes. Can you imagine the indignity they indure living in shelters? As a Louisiana resident, I would like to point out that the victims in the media are not the only victims. They are the poorest of poor. They do have many families and individuals that are displaced, living with relative, hotel rooms, no jobs. Other states have taken in many of the victims but there are small rural communities and cities all over Louisiana itself that have taken in these people. In the small high school in my community, enrollment went up by 200 students almost doubling the student body. The small Catholic school my son attends took in over 40 students. Grocery stores running out of food because the extra people and trucks being delayed. The list of changes and difficulties go on.

Like 9/11, this disaster will forever change America. Not all of the changes will be bad although it seems that way now. This is the time people should stick together and focus on the good things that are happening, not the few people that take advantage of the situation or the people who have no souls and think of themselves. Take an active roll in helping these people, you are not only helping them, you are also helping yourself and the whole country. I have visited the shelters and I have close friends who have actually gone to help with the rescue. Again, this did not just happen to the gulf coast.

I will continue to say an extra prayer for all victims, and especially those of you who seem not to have a heart or soul where others are concerned.

Does anyone know of contacts in Mississippi/Alabama that are needing help for their people who have lost everything? We chose to donate cash to the Salvation Army. By the time I got around to cleaning out my closets, neither the SA or ARC were taking clothing donations and I'm one of those people who is very bad about buying things and then never wearing them so much of the stuff has tags still attached, not exactly junk. Now that it's gathered up, I'll just donate it to our local Helping Hands but would like do whatever we can do to help the people of Miss/AL in particular. It seems they are the "forgotten refugees." At least in our area, we see very little about them but did see a news clip last night that looked like they were as devastated as NO, if not more so. Surely they need help too? TIA for any info.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House majority leader late Tuesday tried to deflect criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by saying "the emergency response system was set up to work from the bottom up," then announced a short time later that House hearings examining that response had been canceled.

Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said House Republican leaders instead want a joint House-Senate panel set up to conduct a "congressional review" of the issue.

Tempers flared Tuesday during a contentious closed-door meeting between House members and Cabinet secretaries in charge of directing Katrina relief efforts. A Republican representative stood up and said, "All of you deserve failing grades. The response was a disaster," CNN was told by lawmakers emerging from the meeting.

But DeLay countered that assessment later in a news conference by saying that the onus for responding to emergencies fell to local officials.

"It's the local officials trying to handle the problem. When they can't handle the problem, they go to the state, and the state does what they can to, and if they need assistance from FEMA and the federal government they ask for it and it's delivered," DeLay said.

He added that Alabama and Mississippi did a much better job of responding quickly than Louisiana. Alabama and Mississippi have Republican governors.

Rest of story link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/07/katrina.congress/index.html

Right now they have no idea when it will be back up and they're warning everyone in Georgia about potential $3.00 and above for gas by the weekend as well as possible gas shortages. The governor and energy officials are working on trying to get emergency shipments from other sources.

I'm glad I have a full tank and work from home - hopefully I can ride this crisis out but I know others don't have the work at home luxury.

difference. Also, have you tried a different headset? Also someone told me one time that there is a microphone under your volume control on the right corner of the C-phone. It's a tiny hole. If you break off a Q-tip and stick that into the hole that will squelch a lot of background noise and that worked as well. As far as getting your C-phone service, I heard that Dictaphone is "sunsetting" C-phones at the end of this year. Meaning, they aren't going to service them anymore as they are considered an obsolete technology. So, I would contact Dictaphone and see what your options are.

I know very little about Lanier equipment. I've not used it as extensively as Dictaphone. Is there a local appliance repair place in your area? You might ask one of those places to take a look at your equipment and see what they think. Kinda scary, cause they could do more harm than good, but maybe worth a shot.

Not much help, I know. But I thought I would share what tiny bit of obscure knowledge I do have.

I have been at this only two months and am bored already - its the isolation and the repetitive work I have. I have a clinic account with a small learning curve, so now my blanks are for the most part garbled words or medications that are unrelated to the specialty area. I'm still building up speed of course, but now getting distracted/bored/daydreaming is slowing me down. I count my blessings that the work is not that difficult but its a trade off.

I KWYM about short vs. long. I usually have 1-2min reports and that keeps me going but when I get a 7 minute one, especially if it is the person who talks very softly, pop goes the Diet Coke can!

I thought I would like working alone at home but now realize that I like to be around people. Funny the things you learn about yourself that fly in the face of what you think you are like.

I think I would be able to do better in house, but what I really want is contact with other human beings and a little more variety in my duties.