Punctuation "is not important"?!!
Posted By: TechSupport on 2009-05-04
In Reply to: BOS and commas - sm
Consider these sentences:
The patient said her mother is insane.
The patient, said her mother, is insane.
Two commas that completely reverse the meaning of the sentence. We are not merely "word-slammers". We are expected to convey the meaning of the spoken word, and that is the role of punctuation. Punctuation substitutes for the pauses, etc. that are used in spoken speech to convey how the words are to be interpreted.
I'm no fan of the BOS by any means, but I can't agree with the extreme statements you make here, either.
You don't have to be an "English major" to know the fundamentals of proper punctuation, either. You should have learned that in grade school. And if they ever do scrap the BOS, you can be sure no one is going to scrap the basic rules of English grammar that you're expected to know and apply.
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Well, grammar/punctuation can dramatically alter meaning, so it IS important. nm
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"Is it worth it"
Definitely. I did 27,500 lines the past two weeks. I wouldnt trade this for any job outside my house. I have two people that work part time for me and make $300-400/wk.
"Is" should be "if" above.
x
oops.. that's transcribe as "is" nm
x
I am so tired of removing "is" or "his" from ASR
Impression
1. Is depression.
2. Is anxiety.
UGH!!!!
Punctuation
I would punctuate:
I told him to clean the area with hydrogen peroxide; and, after that he can apply the Neosporin ointment.
No, it is your punctuation. nm
x
Punctuation question
Which is correct, longhaul truck driver, long-haul truck-driver, long haul truck driver?
Quick punctuation help!
I told him to clean the area with hydrogen peroxide, and, after that, he can apply the Neosporin ointment.
How would the punctuation be on this sentence? Did I do it right?
Thanks in advance for the help..
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much for the help!
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks, I have been doing a grammer course.
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much!
Quick punctuation help! sm
Sorry, but it does not seem you received much help here. The truth is every typist has her own style. It seems that quite a few want to place a comma every time the doc pauses to take a breath or shifts a page. If that is what your own doc prefers, then go for it. Most do not, however.
Grammatically, you may use commas or not in this sentence, but none are necessary. It has been my own experience that doctors would rather have less rather than more in the case of commas. Believe it or not.
Quick punctuation help!
Thanks so much for the advice!
Is question about punctuation? (sm)
If so, I'd change it to:
MUST HAVE: Two years' experience.
Transcriptionists that do not know punctuation
I just had a dictation in which the doctor specified (correctly) where the quotation marks were in relation to the period at the end of the sentence and stated that he was tired of having to correct reports where it was incorrectly placed. I was aghast! How could anybody transcribe and not know elementary punctuation?
punctuation problems
HI,
I am taking my medical transcription course through Allied Schools. I am having a problem trying to punctuate the dictations properly. I would like to know if anyone can help me with this problem. What I thought was proper punctuation seems to be different with medical transcription. Are we supposed to transcribe the punctuation as the doctor dictates or correct it to what we believe is correct?
Also, I have an assignment that I just transcribed that is impossible for me to punctuate. If anyone can help me, I would truely appreciate it.
Grammar/Punctuation
I would mark it as a grammar/punctuation error, however they both hold the same weight score-wise, so it really doesn't matter if you call it g/p or spelling. If it were a case of having 2 different point values, I would go with the lesser of the 2 - I always try to give the MTs the break.
punctuation issues
I was very careful about punctuation until I had to research things and found that the MTs at my hospital NEVER use commas. I could barely understand some of the long, strung out sentences. I always researched obscure medical terms to make sure my work was accurate, yet I make $10 less an hour than others there because the pools are set up so some MTs get the profitable work before the rest of us. The point of this is, I don't feel that my excellent work is appreciated, and I don't believe the pool situation is fair, so I just do minimum to get by. I also work IC to supplement my income, and my IC work is much better because I feel appreciated.
Docs and punctuation
Regarding the posts down the list about the docs who dictate run-on sentences or add bunches of periods, etc. I am wondering why they are not instructed to not include punctuation at all. Our company has us disregard what they say anyway (since it is usually way off), and it seems they are making it extra rough on themselves.
I have one who says comma practically every other word. It really threw me off at first, but now I hardly even hear it (so used to ignoring it). But think how much easier it would be for them to not even think about it. What works the best is when they just use their voice inflection to signal the end of one thought/subject and the beginning of another. Being someone without a whole lot of medical background, it gets confusing when they don't.
Why is it no one seems to communicate with the dictators about such things?
You are not wrong, Punctuation goes
inside the quotation marks.
Need help with punctuation and caps
I have MS Word 2003. This program has always capitalized the first letter after a colon (:) and for some reason today it stopped. I cannot figure this out for the life of me. I have been in Tools, etc, and see nothing that addresses this problem. If anyone has had this problem and knows how to correct it, please enlighten me. LOL
TYIA
Misspelled words, punctuation
I would love to be an Editor some day, love reading the typos in the newspapers, etc. However, I nor anyone else is perfect and we all have our days. On the other hand it depends on what you are accustomed to. I have typed radiology periodically and on one account told to use punctuation where needed and another account that I worked clinic in-house radiology was told by the radiologists not to use punctuation unless they told us to because it could change the meaning of the sentence. So, I obliged and no longer use punctuation unless it is dictated to me. Unless I hear differently I will continue to do as I am told.
Per BOS2 - there are spaces, no punctuation between T N M (nm)
x
There are misspellings and punctuation errors.
NM
All that punctuation nit-pickiness was brought about by
They needed a reason to do it. (And to sell their anal little BOS). Get everyone so freaked-out about commas and semicolons that they either quit, or their production falls off and they can be 'justifiably' let go, forcing the 'poor MTSO' to have to look offshore for bodies to fill their sweatshops.
All that punctuation nit-pickiness was brought about by
They needed a reason to do it. (And to sell their anal little BOS). Get everyone so freaked-out about commas and semicolons that they either quit, or their production falls off and they can be 'justifiably' let go, forcing the 'poor MTSO' to have to look offshore for bodies to fill their sweatshops.
Verbatim radiology. Should I not punctuate when punctuation is clearly indicated?
Should I leave it up to the doctors to add their punctation for this verbatim account? Not putting commas around the word "however" is driving me crazy!
...your E-mails have to have proper English and punctuation.
Am I alone?
Are you from India? Your punctuation and grammar are giving you away. nm
x
AAMT has rules on punctuation that are a great help.
Review them??!!??!!?!
Okay, I didn't renew with them this year, but it still doesn't negate the fact that you could use a calming influence. If AAMT causes you stress, remove it from your memory banks rather than fretting about it. It is what it is.
We don't correct grammar or punctuation on this board...nm
x
Re: expanding with punctuation, more info inside
I have been working on this platform for over a year and absolutely LOVE it. It is not the same as autocorrect expansions. This platform offers a LOT more.
I will type this directly from my manual to explain how the ESP abbreviations are expanded:
Press or type a delinter (a spacebar, enter, period, colon, semicolon, comma, question mark or exclamation point) that is appropriate to the sentence text or punctuation. The exapansion appears AS SOON AS you type the delimiter.
You can highlight entire sentences, paragraphs, etc and enter them directly into the ESP list and make a short abbrev. to retrieve them.
To add an ESP, press control, control and type it directly in, or highlight text in your document and then press control control and name your short abbreviation for it.
Sometimes, depending if your sentences are really LONG you will have to copy/paste directly into ESP and then give it a short.
In addition, with ESPs you can format words to be BOLD by inserting a tag. You can also put a tag in for something underlined, italic, etc. They also allow you to insert pauses and backups in your ESP so that you can type yof and get the hyphen first -year-old female.
Pauses are really neat when you want to nest an ESP inside another one. For example: if you put the following entries in your ESP:
lt (left)
tphp (The patient had pain in the)
(The ESPs need to first be created and exist)
Now you type the abbreviation containing the pause then press spacebar. The sentence expands to the point of pause and then type the abbreviation you want to nest, press the spacebar and hit enter. The complete next appears in your document. Believe me, this is something Autocorrect cannot do and really comes in handy especially when you have really repitious dictators who always give the same order on vital signs, etc.
You can also run a microsoft word macro as part of an expansion if you want. There is a special dialog box that the ESP uses for this.
ESPs also allow suffixes to be added to root words (another feature) but this is something I haven't used much yet.
You can also create more than one list of ESPs (can have 2 open at a time).
This platform also allows you to make "normals" for really long documents. Say you have a 2 page op report that a doctor will use over and over. You can just bring the entire document in. You can edit these normals at any time. These are like templates that you can insert jump codes, all your headings, numbering formats, etc.
On this board, I've been reading a lot about how people run to buy either Instant Text or ShortHand (as these are compatible with Dictatphone) but this is not something you have to run out and purchase. The ESPs offer a lot more than autocorrect.
So far, my one list of ESPs has over 20,000 entries and my line counts daily for 8 hours average between 1500 and 1800. Not bad.
The platform is REALLY easy to work from as another poster said you can pull up previous dictation from another Transcriptionist and copy/paste directly into the document you are typing. This is a really great feature when you have those really lousy dictators who pretty much say the same physical exam, etc. You can then just follow along and edit as you go.
It really is easy to use, and personally I love the Expander and have no complaints. Good luck.
oh, sorry, yes that is important sm
the pay is average for a national. I make $900/week. I think that's pretty darn good! 
How important is it to you ...
How important is it to you that your US medical records are KEPT in the USA?
Does it matter to you? Why or why not?
It's VERY important to me. I don't want anyone in the US much less
outside of the US knowing my business, financial, medical, or otherwise. If I can't sue someone who has used my information for their personal gain then that is a problem for me. It would cost me a fortune to sue someone overseas who say sold my information or threatened to put it on the Internet.
How important is it
Very important. I am HIV and do not want that information going anywhere.
but TAT is what is important and OP...sm
stated that they were having a TAT problem prior - so? TAT is promised, not met, and so the OP didn't meet her/his end of the bargain. I promise 24-48 hour TAT and that's what they have been getting from me for nearly 10 years.
A deal is a deal is a deal - whether on paper or not on paper - verbal contracts are also recognized - just ask Judge Judy *lol*
To the OP - I hope things go better for you truly - but remember this: A promise made is a debt unpaid....that also is in regards to TAT. Best of luck - things will turn around for you, I am hopeful. 
And this is important. sm
It varies state to state, I am sure. You need to get the house out of your mother's name. Where I live, the house has to come out of their name 2 YEARS before they can get in a decent nursing home. There are a not of variables and when you are running to doctors, doing shopping for 2 people, cleaning, plus working full-time which no one realizes if you are an MT because you are "at home"; you really don't have time to keep all the plates spinning by yourself, with no help, and this issue about my mother's home should have been addressed a long, long time ago.
It's important to ask
questions of a potential employer but sounds like she overdid it.
Have to admit though she certainly doesn't lack confidence!
It is amazing to me how self-important US MTs are ...
You want to point your finger toward offshoring companies using HIPAA as your miserable crutch; however, when it comes to ensuring the legitimacy of who YOU are to handle this sensitive, private, protected information -- well just forget it.
After all, I mean, YOU work at home. And you are a citizen of the US. And no US citizen EVER scammed the public, EVER stole identities, EVER did anything wrong. Talk about self-righteous and self-important. Hahaha
What's wrong? What are you afraid of? Someone might really find out about your lack of control over your own life?
No one has ANY idea what YOU are doing with this information either and if your attitudes and behavior on here were shown to physicians and your own employers (and probably your family and friends), many of you would be out - out of a job, out of respect, out of friends and maybe family, out of most of everything and everyone who has no idea what you are like when you feel your anonymous status is hidden.
I'm entitled to how I feel the same as you are. You might want to get prepared though -- time and the conditions in this world are rooting for my opinion.
With the increasing security risks, insurance costs, etc., in this world -- you might want to get busy cleaning up whatever it is you're hiding because the likelihood of you submitting yourselves to any/all of these things for a job is going up and fast.
Hahaha
If bathing is so important to him
then he could wear some swim trunks in the tub with her. I stated that in my last post also. He would still have the bonding time with her but would be covered so she wouldn't be exposed to that. That was also an idea that was posted by another poster that her brother does I think.
One important point: SM
Spheris insurance is PPO, meaning the insurance is not expensive, however, it does not cover the cost of everything or most things, as does HMO insurance. This is a very important fact. Otherwise, agree with above.
I believe it is important for children too..
That does still does not mean that since you made a mistake in your life that you are not entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Could've, should've, would've. We can point fingers and tell people what they should have done, but the fact is, they have rights like everyone else. Of course you tend to do better financially when you do things in the right order. Life does not always work like you want it to though. I myself got pregnant while on BC with a man I had been with for 4 years. I had my son before I got married. We got married when he was less than a month old. He was our only witness. We have since had another child. I have never been on assistance, but I am lucky enough that we have been able to work out our problems and keep our marriage intact. If I could do it all over again, I would have waited, of course. We have struggled quite a bit by having kids so young. Life just doesn't always work out how you want it to though. I want my daughter to get married first and then have children, as do all mothers. Those are things I will teach her too.
Actually, what the account wants is more important than the BOS.
They sign my paycheck and I will do what they request. Don't care much for the BOS and you need to come off your high horse tell everyone they must be consistent with everything.
Yes, consistency is nice, but if the account wants the numbers spelled out from 1-10 that is what the account is going to get - one, two, three, four, etc. They are the ones putting food on my table.
Thanks for that important bit of advice!
I have been going to try them but I will now wait until my next teeth cleaning next month. I NEVER would have given that a thought before. That would be awful to end up with yellow outlines!
Do you know how it might affect crowns??? I assume it will leave them the same color they are. Mine are a little lighter than my natural teeth.
Although MT accuracy is very important,
I think the source of dosing medication comes mostly from the physician's order sheet. I agree with the other poster that a cascading effect is very possible when later dictation and charting is based on the previous records. Also, there are other safeguards and checks made in terms of operations, and they would not be based simply on the H&P. If a doctor bases any operation on just an H&P I would consider him incompetent. This does not excuse the MT who is not careful in documentation.
Get yourself a system...most important..
With Autocorrect, you have to remember everything! So I had to come up with a system that I would remember them. I use the letter *J* for anything that ends in *tion* or *sion,* the letter *Z* for endings with *ize* or *ization*, *x* for words that start with prefix of *ex*, for capitalizing abbreviations, such as HPI that you want to capitalize in a sentence, would be *xhpi.* I use *U* as in uhpi to bring up History of Physical Illness when needed in a sentence, as *HPI* will come up all caps for headings. I also have a system that I will use the first two letters of two words if I have already used the first letters of two words, such as *cp* for chest pain, *chpr* for chemistry profile. If those first two letters are used for something, I go to the first three letters of the first word and the first two letters of the second word. Also will use maybe the first four or five letters of a word. Also, have phrases, such as *sdnh* for she does not have, *shnos* for she has not seen, and just a lot of those types of things. Saves a lot of time. Also have, of course, what the docs constantly say, their little phrases they use all of the time. However, I do forget I have some of these things in there, and have to keep refreshing myself as with about 5000 abbreviations, it gets wicked!! But it really helps to have a system that helps you to remember what you have in there.
Important - see message
I too use Smartype with 2003 and have the same problem, but I wouldn't give up and found out why. What it is when you have a text box (when you jump around using the F11 key to fill in the box) you have to hit the delete key first before you type. If you type without deleting the box first, it will freeze or lock up.
The same thing happens if you hightlight text and want to type over the text. You have to hit delete first and then type. If you highlight and then type without deleting the text, it will lock up. I have trained myself to use the delete key at these times and rarely does it freeze up now. Every now and then I'll forget or accidently do something that will trigger it to lock, but it is not very often.
You can use it, but you have to train yourself. It is a Word problem I was told. If you have any questions, e-mail me and I will try to help
Important ? re. digital(sm)
I get the heebie jeebies worrying that dictation will be erased/lost in the transfer. Is there any backup which will prevent this happening? Where I live if anything is lost, things fly and tempers flare. Scared to death of this happening. How wonderful that you are sharing, kudos to all of you. We need more of this helping attitude.
The MOST important question is.....
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