Been slow over here too.
Posted By: sm on 2007-04-10
In Reply to: No work yet. - sportsmom91
Caught between a rock and a hard place. I need the experience. I need to be working constantly to get that experience. Oh well, I will press forward. Maybe the work will start piling up soon.
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I'm new, but am I still too slow?
I am working on getting faster but here is where I am now:
8 weeks into a new job, my first as an MT. It is clinic work and I have the same 7 or so dictators and its a fairly easy specialty. I send an average of about 1 out of 7 or 8 of my reports to QA for blanks or clarification. They have me sending everything else straight back to the client, so they must be OK with my quality (the account format was pretty easy to learn)
I type between 150 - 185 lph (no spaces counted, 65 char line). I was told to keep my research time down very very low because I am slow, but I am still trying to spend up to a minute or two figuring out drug names or names of equipment or procedures. I have my stedmans word book and my drug book by my side and Google at the ready.
I have a secondary account on which I am not as fast, and don't get to do as often, and I type an average of 120 - 135 lph (no spaces counted, 65 char line) on that.
I sometimes feel like I am doing OK because I get a little faster each week, and sometimes I feel like I am just slower than molasses.
I guess I am just trying to get a feel for where I, as a newbie, should be in terms of speed. I was told that some other MTs on the account are around 200 lph, but was not told how new they are or when they started working on the account.
Thanks. Not sure if I should feel  or  or simply just keep on truckin 
It is normal to be slow at first
I mostly edit VR reports with a few standard thrown in on acute care and ER reports. When I first started, I might have made 500 lines on a good day. Now I generally get 1200-1600 and have been doing this for 1-1/2 years. Once in a while though, I will have a run of difficult speakers and wind up with fewer lines on those days. So, I think it is safe to say we all can have a bad day sometimes.
Rest assured, as a new MT your speed and confidence will grow. When I first started, I found myself looking up a lot more than I ever thought I would have to. Of course, I still find the need to research, but not on every report.
My best suggestion for increasing speed is to try to get where you can read (and comprehend) along with the speaker. That was hard for me at first because I guess my mind was filling in errors at times and I would have to catch them on proofing, but I found slowing down the dictation helped until I got used to the speaker's voice.
I don't think anyone can really tell you exactly how many lines you should be getting right now without knowing what kind of account and difficulty of speakers you have because some accounts and speakers are easier/more difficult than others. Most of us start off rather slow and build from there. Accuracy is extraordinarily important and is key to your success.
I wish you success. God Bless.
I'm the slow kid in the back.....
...and I need to get faster! My transcription is okay but my line counts are low. After transcribing, I re-listen to the entire file to make sure I got everything. My mentor says that's slowing me down too much. Can any of you established MTs share some advice on how to edit more efficiently? I know it's supposed to be something that comes with time, but is there any way to hurry the process along a bit??
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