Medical Transcription - An Emerging
Profession : Medical Transcription is the process of
interpreting and transcribing the dictation made by doctors or
other health care professionals regarding patient status,
treatment procedures, diagnoses, prognoses, etc. With medical
transcription of dictated data from physicians,
the medical transcriptionist may also edit the text that
is produced by voice recognition software. Medical
Transcription is the translating of dictations made by a
doctor. As a result, it requires an extensive knowledge of
medical, pharmacological and anatomical terms. In the past
medical transcriptionists would listen to dictations and type
it themselves, but with the dawn of technology and voice
recognition software, this has become unnecessary and today,
for the most part, the medical transcriptionist merely edits
the output of
the software. However, the editing
process can range from a few corrections to major changes
because voice recognition software still hasn't been perfected
and probably never will be due to the wide variety of speech
variations and dictating habits of health care professionals.
Aside from medical knowledge, a quality transcription requires
a transcriptionist to have excellent listening skills because
they must be able to simultaneously interpret dictation while
typing, they must also have an exquisite knowledge of English
and grammar, proofreading and editing skills, a high state of
analytical skills in order to analyze and convert spoken words
into meaningful writing, as well being adept in the use of
transcription equipment and computers.
Medical
Transcription has been seen as writing in ancient caves and in
documents of lost civilizations, but still the purpose of
medical transcription and the medical transcriptionist remains
the same and that is to keep a record of a patient's medical
status and treatment. However, it wasn't until the late 20th
century that Medical transcription was recognized as a
profession. Initially, those who did medical transcription
were labeled as typists, word processors, medical secretaries
or dictating machine operators.
