Yes, I did
Posted By: nana on 2007-07-06
In Reply to: Nana referred to me as QADRAGONLady below and... SM - QALady
refer to you as that, but you were like asking for it. Hi, thanks for moving this up because it was getting much too long and over to the right. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
I think you need a vacation and someone to validate your feelings. I am an MT, have been QA, am really old, but still working and putting out competent work. Maybe I can help.
When I started there were no computers there were no self-correcting typewriters even. There was carbon paper. Yuck. I was so jazzed when I finally got an IBM Selectric! I thought I was in heaven. There were not as many reference books. There was no Google. There were colleagues who helped you and everyone new kept a little book where they jotted down everything they did not know after someone helped them or after they were lucky enough to find out for themselves. After time passed, there were usually several of those books in your drawer. We had a Stedmans and a few others, but not much else.
You sound angry because no one was smart enough, kind enough or thoughtful enough to help you. That was then and this is now, so you need to get over it and decide if you want to help or just quit.
You have a chance to make a real difference to those you QA for. If you help mentor them they will remember you fondly after you are dead and wish you were there to thank or just to say hi to. They will speak your name in revered tones. You will be at peace knowing that somehere back here on earth there are those you mentored along to total competency. If you keep lashing out at MTs as a group they will just shine you on as a crabby dragonlady and you will have missed your chance to make a difference.
I know there are some MTs who are hired who really should not be transcribing independently and to QA them is a hard job. Take that up with your boss. Get your QA colleagues to back you up. Have a meeting (dreaded though they are). Give them printed resources. Give them a job description including what they MUST be proficient at. Then, find out why on earth your company hired those who were not ready. Find out how to stop this hiring practice in the future. For the ones who are ready, but not totally experienced and ready to fly, HELP them, even though no one helped you. For the ones you help over and over and over and they don't seem able to internalize and practice what they have learned, then they have to go. Put them on notice and give them a time limit in which to become proficient. If they aren't able to fulfill that, then the person responsible for firing has to fire them. No one should have to QA garbage.
I don't feel like I have in any way contributed to the offshoring of medical records and transcription in particular, so don't put that one on me or on most of the other MTs. We all know why and who and we know it was not us. It was the middle people and the ones with cash who took over all the accounts that used to belong almost solely to women who were transcriptionists. It is done, over, it happened. All we can do now is go forward and try to rectify the situation and bring changes for the good, if we can.
By the way, some of the resources you listed (hospital rosters, etc.) are nice, but as I said before, they are not totally accurate unless someone addresses the changes on a daily basis, which they don't. Google is not 100% and the Transcriptionist needs to know the sources to use and the ones that may have spelling errors or be old and out of date.
I already had college courses, Latin and Greek in high school, and was working in a hospital as a student nurse and IP when I started transcribing, so I had an advantage some don't have. It sounds like you do too. What may seem easy and evident to us is sometimes not so easy or evident to all who wish to become MTs. I don't think that all of the MTs out there don't care and are only out for money. I know I care and if I were out for money alone I would certainly not transcribe, especially these days.
This is a wonderful website. Why don't we try to share more with others and let them share with us? Go for it, let them all know SPECIFICALLY what is not acceptable and not in a gotcha manner either. You may find if you are not currently transcribing their accounts that there is a reason why they are making your job so odious. It may be something that you can change, but they cannot. Most MTs don't have access to the hospital or client, and this is as it should be. They rely on you for communication with dictators and departments.
Gotta work now, so I will just say that it has been a real pleasure chatting with you today.
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