Transcriptionists that do not know punctuation
Posted By: Unhappy Camper on 2006-11-13
In Reply to: uuggghh!! Need to vent - sm - recruiter
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?
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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.
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
Punctuation "is not important"?!!
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.
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
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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.
Well, grammar/punctuation can dramatically alter meaning, so it IS important. nm
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Age of transcriptionists
61/female/married 40 years/ 11 grands
How many men transcriptionists
are out there? Have been noticing a few men's names lately and was curious as to how many men transcriptionists there are.
M.D. transcriptionists
The doctors who are supposedly training for transcription have degrees in ayurvedic medicine and homeopathy. Neither has much to do with western medicine. And, can they type? Some of this sounds like bluster to me.
MS transcriptionists
Hi guys. I put this on the state boards, but I don't think anybody reads those. Are there any MTs from Clarksdale, MS or around that area? Love to hear from you.
Low Pay for Transcriptionists
I am 57 and have been transcribing for 28 years. I recently moved from California to South Carolina. I was doing VERY well there working in a clinic, but since moving here I am living at the poverty level. Even with my experience they started me at $ 10.00 an hour. I've checked all hospitals in the area and none pay any better. This is very disappointing. I've applied all over the place, and nobody seems interested. And working for 7 to 8 cents for a 65 character line is like giving your time away for nothing and 3 to 5 cents per line for editing. At 57 I am in bad health, have spent my life transcribing, and don't know how to do anything else. I plan to enroll in school in the fall to learn a different trade.
Hey VTS transcriptionists! DQS still down
Now BizGroup, too. Just keeps gettin better and better. I know that MQ is huge, but we are teeny-weeny, and this is day two with no work...gettin really frustrated.
are you implying that transcriptionists
that work for MQ are less professional??
meant transcriptionists!
nm
Retiring transcriptionists
I retired at age 62 after sixteen full time years and twenty part and full time years. I worked in a fast-paced institution doing all types of transcription. Believe me it took a toll on my hands and wrists. I now suffer burning tendinitis in my right wrist with deQuervain tendinitis in my thumb.
Veterinary Transcriptionists??
Does anyone transcribe for a vet? How did you get in to this area of transcription? It sounds like it would be interesting. Maybe they just have their secretaries transcribe. Thoughts on this.
Thanks!
Diskriter needs help all around - they need transcriptionists for
all shifts, and are finally getting desperate enough to hire PT
Any dental transcriptionists out there?
I transcribe all ops, and I have an oral/maxillofacial surgeon, but no samples on him. Is there anyone doing this type of transcription who might be able to send me a few good samples of dental surgeries?
Thanks.
Ophthalmology transcriptionists out there?
Any other MTs doing ophthalmology? I'm working for docs who are on the east coast. I get so FRUSTRATED because the reports are so short I feel like I'm starting and stopping all the time. I've done 33 files today for a whopping 600-ish lines! Great docs, easy to understand, mainly letters to the PCPs. Most of my files are easily less than 3 minutes long and when I do get a long one, he can't make up his mind so I end up erasing and retyping, and STILL don't get a decent line count.
Just looking for a sympathetic ear from another Ophth MT. I feel like I'm in a different world than these other guys I read about on here!
male transcriptionists
I worked with one where we were paid $25 an hour - he would come in on Saturday and Sunday and milk the clock for 12-16 hours when there was only about 1-2 hours of work. This went on for a couple of years. Then I had another male MT as a supervisor and he was very nice and has always helped me to find work when I needed it. Different strokes for different folks.
Are there any traveling transcriptionists out there and do you like it.nm
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Transcriptionists are smart!
I had a doctor say to his "residents" that they should do transcription because I was answering all of the questions they could not, just because I've transcribed for so many years! That was kind of a nice feeling, if I do say so myself! So... maybe we could all be doctors some day! 
remote transcriptionists
Go to mtjobs.com. There are plenty on there.
any Tampa transcriptionists here?
I would love to know - I have a question.
thanks!
EMR will not reduce the need for transcriptionists
What we do at our office is we transcribe the reports and they are scanned into the EMR - the only difference is there is not an actual paper chart anymore.
any transcriptionists been disabled by
I am an avid gamer and a MT. I'm only 30 and already my wrists get sore periodically. I'm wondering if there is a point where I will be disabled due to transcribing and difficulties with their hands and what to do to prevent it. TIA for replies
VLM -Tried in the 60's to get transcriptionists to join a
union to no avail. Nurses at that time also were non-union - they decided to unionize as their pay and benefits were also abysmal at that point in time. Compare that to their income & benefits now compared to ours. The reply I received for not joining a union then was that the transcriptionists did not want to jeopordize patient care in case of a strike. Well,I agreed we played an integral part in patient care, albeit felt it was secondary compared to the role of nurses regarding patient care - who decided to risk going on strike and made the choice to unionize!!
I totally dropped out of transcription for 10 yrs, only to return and find that AAMT was the answer to our problems. Need I say more ?
As far as the scenario of striking in this day and age with no income, I imagine if I'd add up all the slow days, days without work, holiday periods without work, I could also survive a strike. Only difference being knowing I'd return to work with better benefits including help with health care coverage and increased pay, rather than decreased pay. Shoot - maybe even being recognized as a "Profession" instead of a typist - cognizant of our intelligence & knowledge!!
I don't know to this day if unionizing would have helped us back in the years when it was feasible, but still feel we couldn't have been any worse off than where we are today!
Trying to organize a union now I'll leave in the hands of my internet savvy young ones. How this could be accomplished in this day and age is now beyond my level of expertise!
psychiatric transcriptionists
Please help! We are a group of psychiatric transcriptions working for a hospital who have been bought out by another hospital. We had no line count or QA. Now the new hospital has QA and wants us to type minimum 1500 lines a day. We type assessments, h/p, progress notes, consults, neuro and psychologicals. We have many foreign docs who ramble on. We also work on Dolby transcription and dictation system. Their medical people are required 1000 lines per day and x-rays 2000 lines. We don't feel like any of us can reach this. Are they asking too much?
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