Well, on the other hand, I would like to apologize.
Posted By: SM on 2008-11-27
In Reply to: I'm thankful to have a job at all - new attitude
I have been at this since 1979. The changes that have occurred over the last 25 years have been dramatic and mostly, they have been oppressive. Now, I know I will see e-mails stating that this is the greatest job in the world and who could ask for more than being able to stay at home and make a living.
It is more than that. This is the only field where the wickedness comes out of coworkers to the point of disdain toward their comrades. I don't understand it. It is not like this in any other field. Mostly, the team work that is necessary for feel like there is a common goal (giving the client a perfect report in a timely fashion)and a common enemy (QA which dissect our reports, turning even the most seasoned MTs into self-doubting, defensive and trembling people who, of course, realize they are on the brink of losing their jobs). The past performance however perfect is wiped clean with one bad QA result. Supervision becomes god-like, determine how much income we will make, how well we will enjoy our work and how we feel about ourselves depending on their feedback and encouragement.
There isn't much more to say about this job - it does pay well but comparatively speaking, after 25 years in the same field, you could say, we have not had a raise. Speed typing engines keep our production up to a level that gives us a decent wage.
Say what you will about this job, but it is always going to have good and bad days. Over the years, our hearing will diminish, tinnitus from noise exposure, carpal tunnel from repetitive movements, the innumerable physical conditions which result from sitting still for such a long time (heart attacks at 50 have occurred to two of my comrades), isolation, depression.
And it is not going to get any better.
Trying to consider that I am working to help a physician perform his duties as he treats his patients is what I personally focus on. It helps to be fascinated by medicine.
But, to the new MTs - I apologize for the bad and hope that the good makes up for it. I hope you realize that the patient is why we are here, so be sure that our report is accurate so that proper care is provided.
The personalities in this field can be abrasive, and it may be that reason why they turn to solo work but again, that goes with it. Best advice is to keep to yourself, not gossip nor listen to gossip, type every report like it is the only one, and realize that the money, even 60 thousand a year, is far from enough to compensate us for doing a job that is so rarely appreciated by the CEOs, that our line count and bad QA score over a 30 day period can take us out of a job we have been in for 20 years.
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I've used Hand-Eze and Thergonomic Hand Aids. sm
They help with the carpal tunnel and keep hands warm for me. They cover the hand and wrist but leave the fingers free. I wear them inside out, though, because the seams rub on the skin too much for me. I've gotten so used to them, that it is more comfortable wearing them while typing than typing with nothing on.
Don't talk about hand, I still remember the one that got her hand chewed up by her pet rat....
had nightmares for 2 days after that.
Well, if you broke your right hand and were right-hand dominant, can you see how this might be a fac
It may not be relevant at the time of dictating a physical exam or social history but in the future it would be good to know if the patient breaks the finger(s), wrist, hand, arm.
I apologize..you did say that!
x
No need to apologize. . . .sm
I have (had) one woman ESL that speaks very, very softly with a very, very heavy accent and there is always a huge HUM in the background. If you turn up the volume to actually HEAR her, the HUM just get's louder. She never does shy of at least 40 lines per patient which would take me at least a half hour and would be sent with at least 5 QA markers.
I reported her to my super and haven't had her for over 2 weeks. Whether or not they are "fixing" the problem or sending it to India, I hope I'll never know, but she honestly was next to impossible.
How can you apologize for something other's did?
Your post is sickening. Close the site down? Teach manners to those who hate? Manners?
Don't apologize . .
I rather enjoy the husband rants 
No need to apologize...
We all get just as frustrated with dictators who eat while dictating. It's extremely rude. Then too, some docs have absolutely no idea how horrible it sounds on the other end -- until they hear it for themselves! LOL
For example, I used to transcribe for a university president who chewed (smacked) on his gum during every single dictation. He was a precious man and I never had the nerve to tell him that it bothered me so much. I would literally cringe when I heard this. One day, he went through my office and saw my body language, which must have been quite a sight because I was totally and completely past the point of being able to control or concele my contorted face, the hairs on my neck standing straight up, or my huffing and puffing while typing. I did not hear him walk through and he stopped by my desk to ask me what was wrong. Well, what could I do? I took out my earphones and let him hear it for himself. He was completely shocked and embarrassed.
I felt HORRIBLE about bringing this to his attention because he was the best boss and the sweetest person I knew but he never did it again.
then I apologize
to you and wish you and your family good health. don't forget to vote!
I apologize!
I am sorry. I must have offended you in some way. I guess it is unreasonable for me to need some time off for rest, time with my family, or even for medical leave. Yes, I am very grateful to have a job to return to. I am blessed. Everyone needsa break some time. I just don't want to be the type of wife/mother that teaches her family that money and a job is all there is to life. Maybe I am wrong. Perhaps I should not be seeking advice on this site if I am going to offend others.
I must apologize
I am the OP and did not intend to offend any particular group of people. Did I mention I am not white? As far as I could “hear” the dictator was not black. For the sake of being PC can any one give me the right term to describe Ebonics? Where I was raised “Pijun” was the spoken language, and I would agree with anyone who would think that should be considered ESL as well.
OP, I don't see any need to apologize!
To me anyway, you described a type of language being used and that language is known as Ebonics. To me it's kinda like "pig Latin."
People take offense to the darndest things these days it's not funny. Ever visit the comedy section of this board? I posted maybe 3 or 4 blonde jokes and no one's crawled up my butt complaining racism or whatever. Sigh. It's hard to have any sort of dialogue without offending someone on some level, so just be yourself and if someone has a problem with something you said, it's their problem to deal with, not yours.
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~Eleanor Roosevelt
I apologize for not
reading your post carefully. I see that you realize you will need an editor. If you hire an Editor and pay them what they are worth to proof your work right out of school, they will be making more than you, and you will probably be making less than with S*is or M*qst. Doesn't make sense and I can't imagine it being worth it. To sum it up, yes, your idea sounds nuts. Again, JMO. I'm sure there are people who have done it. Doesn't make it a good idea.
Dang, don't apologize ;-)
Like far out, man..LOL. Awesome resolution on both of them (of course I had to save them to my docs, too)  The second one looks like a Peter Maxx drawing, dontcha think?
Thanks for sharing...really need a peace sign here, dang it...oh, no wink either *sigh*
I apologize for obviously offending you.
nm
I agree - and apologize. (nm)
nm
Heck, don't apologize
They don't deserve it. If they have one ounce of sense in their heads, they will do what they can to accommodate you. If they don't, there are plenty of companies out there who would be happy to hire the talented and witty Hayseed. Seriously.
Just had a doctor apologize to the
x
Yes, it is SHUT UP or APOLOGIZE!...nm
nm
Okay, I apologize ahead of time for this
nm
Apologize for the mistake...meant sm, not nm.
nm.
You are right, Dano. I apologize for sounding
so critical.
Yes, QA can have problems getting their act together. Most of time, however, I see MTs who absolutely feel they should never be corrected nor forced to follow the client preferences because they have a zillion years of experience.
No one knows it all. It doesn't matter if you have 1 year of experience or 25 years of experience; if the client wants it a certain way, they want it that way, period.
I should have tempered the tone of my post and I am going to ask Admin if they will make a change to it.
MT-NY, I apologize for sounding so critical.
This is a touchy subject, as you can well see.
You're correct - I don't know it all! I have over 20 years of experience but when a client wants it a certain way, they just do.
If it is just one QA person who is doing this, I would take that up with a supervisor. I think I might have responded differently had I known it was just one QA person doing this and not all of the QA department.
In any event, I apologize.
Simon did apologize, he said so last night. nm
x
Yes. this post is a bit out of control, and I apologize--sm
I also thank you for your words. I overreacted and I will be the first to admit that. I know she was trying to be *funny* with her comment about shooting herself, and I was trying to be *funny* back, but I didn't call her a nit wit. I am sensitive today because it is my youngest son's birthday and he misses his dad, and it showed today. My son's found their father dead and they are having a difficult time in dealing with it. I guess I am too. I HAVE sought counseling, but I have not found one that was not more interested in money than in trying to help. Thank you again...and to you and the OP....I apologize. I DO know when I am wrong. but I am not a nit wit.
oops - I APOLOGIZE TO SM - you didn't...sm
Sorry to sm....you DID NOT type *slow typers* - Please forgive me for typing that - I was incorrect on that. Really sorry :)
Just apologize for the email and start looking
Unless you have no choice, I strongly suspect you can find a normal job - sounds like they are taking HUGE advantage of you.
It is NOT worth getting sick over.
Oops, apologize for the spelling errors, bad day....nm
x
ok, I apologize. I do sympathize with and understand with you seansoned MTs but...sm
in the economy today I just can't see why the newbies or fairly new MTs have to complain all of the time. It seems to me that if they were working instead of complaining on this board they would be more productive.
Also, my husband does not do road construction but my friends in this area do make that doing road construction. But they are only home 1-2 days a week from April-May until November. So, you take what you can get and make it work.
Of course, I apologize for placing my post in the wrong spot!! :)
,
Geez this, you should apologize because the innuendo was there. Nice try at covering yourself tho.
iii
I apologize if I offended you, that wasn't my intention at all. As far as any suggestions for SM
your situation, I would agree with MT2RN above that maybe she is being enabled to behave the way she behaves. She is getting exactly the reaction she wants. It's hard to do, but if she refuses to get help from trained professionals, then you shouldn't be there to take care of her. My ex-husband refused and I stayed for a long time, taking care of him. He had employment issues and drinking issues and spending issues and legal issues and I just enabled him. I made the money and cleaned up his messes, paid off his debts, bailed him out of jail. It is an endless cycle that can only be broken by the stable person saying "I won't help you anymore, unless you help yourself first."
Again I apologize for offending you. My initial post was in response to your post chronicling what seemed to me to be depression without mania and you made no mention of her being diagnosed as bipolar, so I just simply was curious. I thank you for clarifying and I wish you well. It's really tough situation to be in.
uhhhh, well I um apologize. I uh didn't mean to um take away from you uh rant. And uh yeah, 100
a little um, ya know, excessive. But ya know, some of us, uh aren't quick thinkers like um, ya know, you.  Just havin' a little fun.
I worked with an older lady who got sick of hearing all the ums, sniffles, coughs, crunching from a certain dictator. She was one to tell it like it is no matter who you thought you were, co-worker, supervisor, doctor, administrator. She had been at the hospital for nearly 30 years and was nearing retirement. I loved her! So she typed a report of his verbatim and I mean VERBATIM. With every grunt, snort, and nonsensical word he made. She, then of course transcribed it correctly. She sent in the verbatim report just to show him and his staff what he sounded like. Long story short, he didn't have a sense of humor at all and he couldn't take a very large boulder of a hint. He called our supervisor ranted to her about this transcription and said that our department had better not be disprespectful to him like that again. He never changed his dictating style either.
Anyway, there's my story. I always have one.
On the other hand....
if you're an experienced acute care MT, you can pick up radiology in a month or two. I just did it earlier this year. Never typed a minute of radiology before and a couple months later I'm "flyin" at it. Yes, there's a learning curve, but it's not brain surgery.
on the other hand...
If you knew the TAT on the account when you took it on, and accepted it as such, then your obligation is to have the work done on time. If your personal life is getting more complicated and interfering with your ability to maintain the TAT, then maybe you should let your employer know so they can replace you with someone who can meet the TAT. Their first obligation is to the client, after all.
On the other hand....
Just the fact that you would be working on only one type of report would tend be for better production.
None I can think of off hand LOL!
xx
on the other hand..emp vs IC sm
status.
Anyone have experience with companies who hire you as an employee, certain hours but don't provide you with the equipment you need? Worked for a company that did that but no medical spell checker on their software, some accounts they want YOU to buy a C-phone for etc. etc. Asked them up front if account I would be working on would have medical speller, told yes. It did not. Also there was some kind of ShortHand program built in that they knew nothing about, we couldn't get to and conflicted with the autocorrect I used in Word. Kept asking and it was always we will ask the hospital and then nothing. Went out bought my own spell check and whatever I needed then three weeks into working, they dump the account.
Start over with a new account, different problems, they want me to buy even more stuff. Said no I am outta here!
Anybody had that problem?
You're right .. and here's 1st-hand knowledge -- sm
I start med school (been an MT for 24 years) August 2006.
One of my classes last semester was Intro to Medical Practices. I especially inquired about pro bono work by all the physicians and dentists who spoke to the class as guests each week. All gave significant amounts of their practice to pro bono work.
One physician in particular impressed me. He is a cardiovascular surgeon. His main area of expertise is doing cardiac bypasses. To make a long story short, because of insurance changes (MCare) over the past few years, he only makes about $650 per bypass for his own pocket and that is gross. Of the $1850 MCare and insurance companies pay him for this procedure, it costs him $1200 in overhead for that procedure. Until last year, he would often do the procedure for free for patients who could not afford it and had no insurance. However, for 2 years he had to BORROW MONEY to pay his OVERHEAD because he did so much pro bono work. He finally decided he just could not go bankrupt doing that. So now, he STILL does HIS PART for free but the patient has to pay his overhead. He tells them to call their family, friends, churches and if they have the $1200 for his overhead, he will donate HIS skills/time/energy for free.
The physician (maxillofacial surgeon) who directed this class said his annual pro bono work runs around $250,000 a year.
As well, while dentists recoup 95% to 100% of the fees charged for their services (they are ALWAYS getting their money up front), physicians (with the exception of cosmetic plastic surgery) only recoup an average of 31% of their fees. For every $1000 they spend on a patient, they will only get back approximately $310 and must write off the rest.
Now that is INSIDE information - direct from the physicians and dentists we had in class. I was shocked. Not deterred, but shocked.
Regarding that lovely cardiologist who gives so much away, take into consideration that the $650 for HIS skills/time/energy for ONE cardiac bypass -- he invests a total of 12 to 15 hours for that one procedure (that is WITHOUT complications happening) including his consult/operative time/followup visits, hospital rounds, etc. That comes out to about $54 an hour -- and plumbers and electricians around here make more than that. My Ford dealership in town gets $76 an hour.
And now, since we are starting to do bypasses endovascularly through the femoral artery, he has to really put the money down for more education to train to do this or he will be out of business shortly.
Interesting huh?! When people make comments to me about my future as a physician as a way to "get rich", I tell them not necessarily so!! LOL I'm not doing it for money! You couldn't pay me enough to go through all this at this time in my life!! LOL
Because I live with it first hand
I do get offensive when someone doesn't like my children simply because of their skin tone. I'm not saying that the OP said anything about my children or even posted about the topic. I was just offended that she can so casually admit to being a prejudice person. Prejudice causes hate and violence. I take offense to that. I think that you should, and everyone should take offense to it so that it can be stopped. If everyone were okay with it or no one ever stood up about the subject, where would we be?
Also, there is a difference between knowing someone as an individual that may be a "bad seed" and be a minority and not liking them versus not liking someone without knowing them as a person simply because they are a minority.
All I know is, when those of us who are saved make it to heaven, there will be every race there right along with us, as God has created us all in his image.
Don't need hand holding.
I don't expect them to hold my hand, but it would be nice if they at least pretended to be somewhat human! Compassion for another person's loss only takes a second to respond to.... as you said in your post. It only took a second right? Most of the time I am with you, I would rather NOT hear from them. But of course I sent an e-mail to tell her that I would be out for the funeral, she could have replied with a condolence. That's all I am saying. I think that's a bit of a problem with the world in general these days, no one even seems to have time to be kind.  Thank you for your second to respond and give your condolence on my loss!
Hand stress
I've transcribed since 1983. You can lessen hand stress if you observe how you hold your hands as you type. When I was in my twenties I noticed that there was a real difference in the way I held my hands and how the older transcriptionists (they had their wrists up and hands pointing down at the keyboard). I have always had my wrists laying on something and my fingers are going up. I have never had one bit of carpal tunnel or pain whatsoever.
I agree 100%, on the other hand
They are all "red" states, you would think Bush would give them a payback for giving him a job....hey, maybe if we tell him Osama Bin Laden is there he will send some troops.
Two first hand accounts..that's where
Any excuse to blame him...that's okay. Very expected. Very insignificant.
Well, Bush DOES consider himself at the right hand of The Man...
I have Short Hand. Never used the others -sm
You can install ShortHand on multiple PCs. I like it. You can actually have one shortcut for a few things (found that really, really useful). You do have to pick from the list which one you want, but I'd rather be accurate even if it might slow me down a little. It has drawbacks too though. If you forgot to put -ed on the end of a word for instance, and you go back and do that and if ed is one of your shortcuts, it will expand when you don't want it to. You can save your personal shortcut dictionary (which is nice for backup) and install it along with the program on other PCs. You can also convert an old PRD dictionary from WP if you had one and possibly others too.
It works with anything windows and you can have multiple dictionaries for multiple jobs or facilities that might have different rules.
best hand lotion..sm
This stuff is great. It's about $12.00 a bottle..maybe more now..check out Silver Lining.com ... it has MSM in it and I have actually used it to relieve my carpal tunnel pain. It's a great healing lotion. Wonderful stuff!
Help! Does anyone have first-hand experience with VR, and if so,
what about the MONEY? I do not mind learning it and am excited about the new possibilities and where MT fits; however, am I to expect a major pay reduction? I imagine full-time with benefits will no longer be an option?
Please, any substantial information will be very appreciated...I am only interested in the money, so I can pay my rent, my utilities, my groceries. I do not have a husband who supports me, so live paycheck to paycheck.
Is it possible to make any money?
Thanks all!
leg and hand edema
I have had a problem with swelling in my lower legs and feet and also my hands for the past few years now. When this first started I had problems with headaches, went to the doctor and found my blood pressure was high. So now I take HCTZ 75/50 once a day and do pretty well on it. It is a pretty good diuretic and my B/P is very well controlled on it.
In the mornings I have no swelling at all, but I notice though that by the end of my workday my hands and legs are really swollen. My doctor says to just start exercising regularly and elevate my feet whenever possible. I also try to avoid salt. I'm a bit overweight so I'm sure that is not helping either.
I'm just curious if any of you other MTs have this problem also and how you deal with it.
Hand raised...
I too tell my teens to get off the phone, bed by 10:30 usually, curfew and such. It's hard because her friends don't have curfews and she does. It's very difficult to be the "party pooper" but somebody has to.
Want to hold my hand.
I agree, insulting a fellow MT is uncalled for, let alone a PS to imply this is unprofessional. I guess the word "brain" "dense" and "childish" are your words for the week! That makes what now, ? MTs you are wondering whether they have brains or not, are dense or childish. Oh, and please stop YELLING at people posting on this site. We are not children nor do we act like a child. Be kind as if we were your children, because you obviously are not around adults often enough. Geez!!!!!!! PS: Congrats to making fantastic money. I'm sure you are very dedicated.
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