Medical Transcription - An Emerging Profession
By Kevin Erickson, Thu Dec 8th

Medical Transcription is the process of interpreting andtranscribing the dictation made by doctors or other health careprofessionals regarding patient status, treatment procedures,diagnoses, prognoses, etc. With medical transcription ofdictated data from physicians, the medical transcriptionist mayalso edit the text that is produced by voice recognitionsoftware. Medical Transcription is the translating of dictationsmade by a doctor. As a result, it requires an extensiveknowledge of medical, pharmacological and anatomical terms.

In the past medical transcriptionists would listen to dictationsand type it themselves, but with the dawn of technology andvoice recognition software, this has become unnecessary andtoday, for the most part, the medical transcriptionist merelyedits the output of the software. However, the editing processcan range from a few corrections to major changes because voicerecognition software still hasn't been perfected and probablynever will be due to the wide variety of speech variations anddictating habits of health care professionals.

Aside from medical knowledge, a quality transcription requires atranscriptionist to have excellent listening skills because theymust be able to simultaneously interpret dictation while typing,they must also have an exquisite knowledge of English andgrammar, proofreading and editing skills, a high state ofanalytical skills in order to analyze and convert spoken wordsinto meaningful writing, as well being adept in the use oftranscription equipment and computers.

Medical Transcription has been seen as writing in ancient cavesand in documents of lost civilizations, but still the purpose ofmedical transcription and the medical transcriptionist remainsthe same and that is to keep a record of a patient's medicalstatus and treatment.

However, it wasn't until the late 20th century that Medicaltranscription was recognized as a profession. Initially, thosewho did medical transcription were labeled as typists, wordprocessors, medical secretaries or dictating machine operators.This was and still is a highly unjustified job title for thosewho practice medical transcription because the professionrequires a wide knowledge of medical terms. Thus, in 1999,Medical Transcription was assigned its own job classificationand those practicing it were officially called medicaltranscriptionists.

Medical Transcription as a profession is very underground andmost people might not have heard about it. However, medicaltranscription is an essential profession in the every growinghealth care industry... especially to health care staff thatdoes not have the time to put into writing every single bit ofinformation that they gather from patients. As a result, thedemand for qualified medical transcriptionist professionals iscontinually growing and because the number of new procedurescoming into the market doctors don't have the time to transcribeall their findings.

Medical Transcription as a profession is very versatile as well.Medical transcriptionists, can acquire after a few years ofeducation, work from medical transcription firms. MedicalTranscription firms receive dictations made by doctors and inturn, these orders are turned over to medical transcriptioniststo be transcribed.

A medical transcriptionist can also work full or part-time athome. Currently, the American Association for MedicalTranscription is governing body in the United states thatcertifies Medical transcriptionists, although you won't need acertification to be able to work as one, a certification formthe AAMT, will surely increase you're "market value" andcredibility.

Medical transcription is no longer merely listening andtranscribing the words dictated by a doctor. MedicalTranscription is evolving and now requires specific educationcentering on medical language, knowledge of Greek and Latinprefixes and suffixes, anatomy, physiology, disease processes,medical science and procedures, medical instruments,pharmacology, laboratory instruments, laboratory test results,medical reference material techniques and many more.

About the author:Kevin Erickson is a contributing writer for:http://www.total-transcription.com andhttp://www.eyeonnursing.com and http://www.totalparalegal.com.This article may be reproduced only in its entirety