Medical Transcription: A Rewarding and Challenging Career by Mary Ruff-King The field of medical transcription is very attractive to most people because it does allow the opportunity to work from home and make a decent to good income. However, most individuals getting into this field do not know the challenges they will face once they decide to pursue this field.

Medical transcription work is not easy because doctors are usually rushed and treating patients is their priority. Dealing with paperwork and dictating are necessary tasks they must complete, and sometimes how they do it leaves a lot to be desired. It can be difficult to understand what a doctor has said and what he has written.Consequently, medical transcriptionists must stay vigilant and alert when transcribing. An injury to the left hand can suddenly be dictated

written as the right hand and then once again changed back to the left. Thus, medical transcriptionists act as a quality control gatekeeper and must catch such errors.Medical transcriptionists are truly medical language specialists. There are many medical words that sound similar. Abduction and adduction; a fusion and effusion; oral and aural are good examples of such similar sounding medical terms.

A good MT knows what words to use and more importantly, what word or words should have been used by the doctor in the dictation. Medical transcriptionists must also be very competent in English usage and grammar. Dictating on the fly, as doctors do, is not easy; and it is the medical transcriptionist's responsibility to make sure the meaning is conveyed in a concise and grammatically correct format. It takes time, usually years, to fully develop this technical skill.