Tips for Newbie Transcriptionists

PRODUCING HIGH QUALITY TRANSCRIPTS

I suggest that you join a forum aimed at VAs and transcriptionists. For South Africans I would recommend TAVASA. Working from home can be a lonely experience and trying to sort out technical problems can be very daunting. By joining a forum you will be in contact with people who understand exactly what is required and can assist with questions.

Best of all, this is where the more established people post their requests for assistance with overflow work. Having secured a shot at subcontracting this overflow work bear the following in mind:

• Obtain a template from the contractor and STICK to it – every comma, every underlining, every space. Do not get creative and do not try to improve on the template.

• Often the contractor will send a sheet through with his or her typing preferences and requirements. Read it carefully before you start typing and again before you proof your work and ensure you abide by the instructions.

• Communicate – if you are having problems with the recording it may be a bad recording. On the other hand, if you are the only typist experiencing problems then it is probably an incorrect setting or your equipment may be faulty. The only way to find out is by asking the contractor about the recording quality. Do not go merrily ahead and turn in a transcript littered with [unclear], [inaudible], etcetera.

• Make notes as you go, especially for names and words that you are not sure of. Should these become clear as the transcript progresses, it makes it easy and quick to do a global replacement.

• Proof your work thoroughly. Put those earphones on and go through the whole transcript – this is time-consuming and quite often expensive – it takes a long time to type your very first transcription and it can be quite discouraging in terms of your hourly rate, but you would be amazed at what you pick up on the second run-through. Words previously indecipherable will be clear once you are familiar with the context of the transcript.

• Spell and grammar check – spell checking is an absolute requirement but adding the grammar check function is very useful in picking up mistakes other than typos. Bear in mind that transcription is usually rendered verbatim and the most common grammar mistakes are made in speech. Do not be tempted to tidy up the speaker’s grammar unless specifically requested to do so.

• Google is your friend. If, for instance, you pick up a name and a designation but not the company name, chances are you will find it on Google. Many terms are industry-related or, in the case of medical transcription, the names of patent drugs, etcetera, are unfamiliar to most people. It is not enough to spell a word phonetically, add a question mark and move on. In the long run your efforts will be rewarded.

• Ask questions. We were all new at this once and I believe we would rather answer a dozen seemingly insignificant questions rather than receive a badly-typed transcript.

The above steps are very, very important. It is as well to remember that not only do contractors offer the jobs that will get you started as a transcriptionist but that they often recommend – or not – typists to other contractors. Shoddy work will put a halt to your career before you start. Commit to producing high quality transcription from day one.



Michele Johanson is based in Cape Town and owns Good Hope Transcription and Typing Services http://goodhopetranscription.weebly.com which offers general and legal transcription, typing, article and content writing and editing/proofreading functions. Recently we have added recording of small meetings to our profile.

Medical transcription

As most of you would know, there is more than one type of transcription – transcription disciplines include general transcription, legal transcription and medical transcription. It’s medical transcription that I would like to focus on today, and I hope that this article can be of benefit to potential clients and transcriptionists alike.

I thought that the most beneficial way to address this topic may be in a question and answer format, and I am beginning with the most basic element – to ensure that you understand clearly what medical transcription is.

Q. What is medical transcription?

A. Medical transcription is the conversion of notes recorded by a medical professional (usually a doctor) into a written format. This is usually done nowadays by means of a digital transcriber, which produces a digital sound file which is then sent to the medical transcriptionist (usually, but not always, a contractor from home) to transcribe – although there are still some medical professionals who prefer the use of cassettes. Cassettes can be transcribed either by converting them to digital audio or using a cassette transcriber. These reports are then sent back to the medical professional. The field of medical transcription has grown immensely over the past 15 years and continues to grow today, and medical transcriptionists are now an integral part of the medical community.

Now that we understand fully what it is, let’s look at who would be cut out to be an MT.

Q. Who could be a medical transcriptionist?
A. In my opinion, anybody with who types well, has an excellent grasp of the language they plan to work in, and has good hearing can consider a career in Medical Transcription. In addition, a person who has a medical background, such as nursing, radiology assistant, etc in addition to the above would make an exceptional candidate for MT work. If you do not have good linguistic skills, I would go so far as to say you should not consider becoming a medical transcriptionist.

Now let’s find out how easy it is to be a medical transcriptionist.

Q. How does one become a medical transcriptionist?
A. The accepted and most conventional way to become a medical transcriptionist is to study for it. Although I have no personal experience of them, I do know that medical transcription can be studied in South Africa at Transcribe SA (website http://www.transcribing.co.za). Courses can be done online in the comfort of your house or physically, in a classroom, and the length of them usually varies between 3 – 7 months, studied usually on a part time basis. A less usual way of getting into the field could be learning under the guidance of a more experienced MT.

Q. What equipment do you need to be a medical transcriptionist?
A. - Computer and internet
- Headphones
- Speakers (optional)
- Footpedal (optional)
- Dictation playback software

Of course like anything there are constraints facing this field and one needs to weigh up pros and cons.

Q. What challenges face the medical transcription field?
A. Things like Voice Recognition Software, which is making continual progress and other technological innovations such as Google Voice can somewhat prove to be thorns in the side of the medical transcriptionist. However, I do not believe that the software is anywhere near good enough at the moment to replace the medical transcriptionist. There will always, I believe, be a need for human input (and this is another place where your grammatical training comes in) to ensure that contextually and grammatically everything is correct.

Consider for a moment the nature of medical dictation, and you will understand why I recommend studying to be a medical transcriptionist. Medical terms can sound very similar yet have entirely different meanings and indeed the use of them in the wrong context can have dramatic consequences – for example, the words “hypoglycemia” and “hyperglycemia” sound almost the same but have vastly different meanings – the former means “low blood glucose”, and the latter “high blood glucose”! So why experience, qualification and a bit of ‘savoir faire’ is essential to be an MT, and TAVASA has a number of highly qualified, experienced medical transcriptionists on board! Contact us today (www.tavasa.blogspot.com). .

Please if you are copying or rewriting this article, credit me, Gaynor Paynter, as the author and give a backlink to TAVASA’s blog at www.tavasa.blogspot.com