Health Sciences - Medical Transcription - Research Paper Example

This paper will describe the overall employment environment, types of careers and future opportunities in the field of medical transcription. Overall Employment Environment Blake (1998) notes that a medical transcriptionist can work either in the hospital, medical office, clinic or as an independent contractor. Ferguson (2003) argues that most medical transcriptionists work in an office. They sit at desks in front of computers and have dictations or transcriber machines and medical reference books with them.

Home-based medical transcribers and in some cases office transcribers are invest in reference books and equipment on a continuous basis, so as to keep up with the changes in medical terminologies and technology. Transcriptionists who work in an office usually work a 40 hour week. Some are usually assigned to work in a second or third shift. However, with regard to independent transcriptionists, the working hours are only clocked when they have work to be done (Ferguson, 2003). In this case, they sometimes work on part-time basis, on weekends or at night.

Consequently, in case they are extra busy, this usually forces them to work more hours than they usually do in the normal working week (Ferguson, 2003). Medical transcription are required to develop a lot of listening skills, mental deciphering, hand eye-coordination and concentration for them to be able to perform their duties as required (Blake, 1998). The environment under which medical transcriptionists operate involve high-pressure as the transcription time is specific. For this reason, medical transcriptionists must be able to work under such kind of environment, where transcription must be completed (Blake, 1998).

The environment also involve the use of idiosyncrasies speech such as regional dialects, colloquialisms, accents, foreign language variations and other related speech impediments. It is therefore important for medical transcriptionists to be prepared to face such a mix and complexity in the medical transcription profession (Blake, 1998). Blake (1998) asserts that medical transcription environment involve the application of ergonomic transcriptions, which is the science in which transcriptions are tailored to the transcriptionist’s own anatomical, psychological and physiological transcriptionists in a way that blend efficiency with well-being.

Blake (1998) notes that the ergonomics in medical transcriptions include: being knowledgeable on working with special tools such as screen glare guards; being mentally and physically prepared for the work available; being knowledgeable of back, hand and other bodily movements to prevent or minimize exhaustion or injury; being aware of mental and physical strengths and weaknesses that may be detrimental; and having support groups (Blake, 1998). This kind of environment thus requires that medical transcriptionists should be well trained in a number of disciplines such as keyboarding, grammar, word processing, medical terminologies, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology among others (Blake, 1998).

In a medical office such as a hospital, Blake (1998) notes that medical transcriptionists have a bit of direct contact with dictating physicians. Sometimes, it is the medical office administrator that acts as an intermediary, passing information from the transcriptionist to physician and at times the medical transcriptionist go directly to physician with any problem or question (Blake, 1998). The