I want to know about the study centres for medical transcription and essential qualification?

Question

Duration of course and course fee? Is there any scopes of job sellection

Answer 1

Take news paper see the classified page browse thorough it sure you will fine at lest 2 adv in relation to this - call them they will tell u the rest of the story
Usually it is 3mnts and fee can be 15 to 30 k
Scope is immense but - no much development or the so called promotion - all depend on ur speed to type without mistake and sharpness in hearing

Answer 2

WHAT IS MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION?

Contrary to common belief among young people in India, medical transcription has been done for many years, long before the advent of the computer age. Medical doctors and other health care professionals in large hospitals and small clinics, mostly in the western nations, maintained a record of their observations using tape recorders, and their dictated observations on magnetic tape were transcribed into medical records in writing.

Such observations presented the state of the medical condition or the health condition of their patients so that such records could help the same medical doctor or some other doctor to understand the effect of the treatment suggested and undergone by their patients. Doctors used their own notations, abbreviations, technical terms, and abbreviated or elliptical sentences commonly used in their profession while dictating such messages. It was the duty of the trancriptionist to faithfully transcribe the message as it was dictated. This description of the process has not changed much. However, there are many interesting factors that have come to impact the profession of medical transcription.

3. THE ENTRY OF NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKING MEDICAL AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

For one thing, since the 1960s, doctors, whose mother tongue is not English, have been employed increasingly by hospitals in the United States, and other western nations. While their competence in the medical profession may not be questioned, their competence of the English language has been a matter for humorous remarks in various publications and among their mother tongue English-speaking colleagues. Their accent differed from one individual to another based on their country of origin.

East European and West European doctors had their own accent, which, perhaps, was easier for the transcriptionist whose mother tongue was English, relatively speaking. Asian accents and African accents, and even the Australian and New Zealander accents posed great problems for the transcriptionist. And yet most of the transcriptionists at that time were, generally speaking, mother tongue speakers of English, and the majority of the doctors were also mother tongue speakers of English.

Elliptical sentences, the nasal twang, vowel reduction, use of peculiar phrases, colloquialisms, etc., were easy for them to imagine and supply, and to hit upon the correct intent of the doctors who dictated these messages.

4. CHANGE OF SITUATIONS

Situations have changed dramatically in the last decade.

While medical transcription as a profession is still pursued by a good number of mother tongue speakers of English, the volume of work is too large for this small group of people to handle and to deliver results as quickly as possible to keep the records up to date. The medical fields and services have burgeoned enormously, along with the influx of a variety of technical terms and expressions. Even in this age of dominance of English, foreign terms have entered the medical profession, because surgical procedures are continually being updated and developed in Europe, Japan, etc., and these foreign terms are Greek and Latin to this small group of people.

5. THE MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION PERSONNEL IN THE WESTERN NATIONS

Another dimension is that an undergraduate college degree in the United States and many other western nations is still valuable in terms of its potential to earn high wages, without doing this back-breaking transcription work. As a result, the medical transcription profession largely attracts two-year Associate Degree graduates. Their knowledge of the technical terms needs to be continually updated, even when they continue to have an edge and advantage over the medical transcriptionists from nations like India. The tuition fees to take a three level medical transcription courses to become qualified medical transcriptionists are rather enormous, in the vicinity of at least 10,000 dollars. Well, we can go on listing the special problems faced by the medical transcription profession in the western nations.

6. THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION IN INDIA

The problems faced by the budding medical transcriptionists in India are somewhat of a different nature. It is too early to say that many of these young people employed as medical transcriptionists by enterprising contractors in India would dedicate themselves to this profession as their life-long career. Most of these young people have under graduate and post-graduate degrees, especially in science, and they really do not have to pay anything to train themselves to be medical transcriptionists. Often they learn the trade on the job, and their original investment is "good" English competence and some science background. We realize that this characterization of the situation does not really do justice to the situation. But it is, in our assessment, largely true.

7. CORRECT DECIPHERING OF DICTATED MESSAGES

The major problem these young people face relates to the correct deciphering of the dictated messages. Their exposure to native English is minimal, mostly through the Hollywood movies, and the BBC broadcasts. We all know that the Bollywood movies are more popular than the Hollywood movies in India!

Listening to the news through the CNN channel has been popular, but not any more. Indian news channels attract their attention because the politics in India is closer home than the politics most of the time telecast in channels like the CNN and others.

They do communicate with each other and with their parents and relatives (if they are from major metropolitan cities, and if they belong to families with English education) via English, but then their English style is typically Indian. Idiomatic expressions are characteristically Indian, with a good sprinkling of idioms from the Victorian age, etc. They are very good in written expressions, even though such expressions may be rather involved, and may follow the syntactic patterns of olden days.

Their English language textbooks have been heavily impacted by their cultural elements, with stories from their own mythologies. Their knowledge of current spoken English and current simple and plain written English is rather not outstanding.

They are willing to work long hours, and are eager to improve their lot in this world. Their science textbooks have been good, but their pronunciation of the terms used in such textbooks is not much closer to the native English pronunciation of the same terms and phrases.

They have internalized a phonological pattern of English that is not identical to that of the native English speakers. Their phonological pattern of English gives them keys to pronunciation, following its own rules. The native speakers have a slightly different pattern, with several special features such as stress, stress reduction, vowel reduction, etc. And the mother tongue users can intuitively apply such patterns to the new word they come across. On the other hand, our Indian young people have their own phonological patterns which they use to interpret and reproduce a new word they come across in the dictated passages.

8. ERRORS AND BLUNDERS IN MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION

Generally speaking, medical transcription should tolerate zero error, because the wellness of patients depends on the correct transcription of the records of diagnosis and procedures. And yet even the English mother tongue transcriptionists do still commit errors. There is some freedom to make corrections in the transcribed material for grammar, as well as for some clarity. Devices such as parentheses to present the amplification may be used. Although the physicians and other health care professionals whose dictations are transcribed will have the chance to validate the transcribed material, the professionals will certainly get mad if they have to make extensive corrections in the transcribed material to set the record correct, so to say.

George Heymont, who is Managing Partner of San Francisco's Alert & Oriented MedicaL Transcription Services, lists many interesting episodes in his insightful articles on the subject. Consider some of the following comments on the peculiar speech habits of some of the medical and other health care professionals he came across (Read his insightful articles in http://www.wwma.com/alert.html):

* Wet dictation (the tendency to dictate with a mouthful of saliva). This garbles some sounds and also gives transcriptionists the impression that the dictator is spitting into their ears. Transcriptionists do not like this kind of sound. Indeed, it can cause them to scream and curse at a dictator on a regular basis.
* Acceleration/deceleration. A tendency to speed up dictation on items which may not interest the doctor (usually segments of the physical examination or the patient's list of medications), but which the transcriptionist needs to hear clearly.
* A tendency to transpose "L" and "R" sounds. Is the doctor talking about a 24-hour urine collection or a 24-hour urine correction? How much second guessing must a transcriptionist do in order to cut through a physician's impaired speech habits?
* Neglecting to carefully spell the names of patients and doctors (especially those with Asian names).

9. PROBLEMS OF SECOND LANGUAGE USERS OF ENGLISH

Making the statements grammatically correct may be done with ease, suggesting amplification requires greater acquaintance with the language, diction, usage, punctuation, and technical terms, apart from a deeper sensitivity to the content and the style, structure, and the form of medical records.

In this, young people in India, drawn by the socio-economic circumstances into the field of medical transcription, certainly are in a disadvantageous position. There are greater demands made on their skill in understanding a variety of native English dialects or styles, and they have to accomplish this sensitivity over and above the heavy impact of their own Indian English and speech styles. Not only this demand, they are also required to understand the varieties of English a Hispanic or African American, or a Cambodian or a Chinese doctor, or a recent immigrant professional from any one of the corners of this world would be using.

The problems of the second language user of English as a medical transcriptionist are indeed different from those of the first language speakers of English. George Heymont remarks, "The influences of rap and Ebonics have taken a terrifying toll on the common use of the English language. When combined with such cross-cultural phenomena as "Engrish" and "Spanglish," one cannot ignore the tragic results of dumbing down America's education system. What Shaw saw as a verbal class distinction has become visible in electronic format all over the Internet. In email messages and bulletin board postings, one sees medical transcriptionists using the most atrocious grammar. Computer slang runs rampant. Homonyms appear everywhere."

Develping better speech and listening habits even in Indian English is thus an important prerequisite for our young medical transcriptionists. Their youthful indulgence in SMS lingo, and many other expressions should be kept under check, in order to better grasp the complexities of spoken native English. Suitable training programs are needed in this area, and the companies or contractors, who profit from outsourcing, owe it to their own profession and employees to set up really sound training programs.

Poor medical transcriptionists in India need to be aware of these things, and prepare themselves to meet this challenge, if India is to continue to attract more clients in this area."

10. HELP FROM CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS

In late 1960s and during 1970s, university departments of English and Linguistics in India did some intensive contrastive linguistic studies between Indian languages and English, and between various Indian languages. It will be a good thing to look into such studies again, and seek to identify the problems that confront the young Indian medical transcriptionists.

For example, the auditory and productive skills relating to contrasts such as r and l, s, sh, and S, between f and ph, even between p and b, between w and v, etc., need to be strengthened. A sensitivity to the syllabification process in English, related problems of spelling, placement or avoidance or reduction of stress on words, ability to hear unstressed syllables, recognize the patter of vowel reduction, the distinction between the voiceless and voiced inter-dental fricatives, the pluralization processes of English, specific gender distinctions normally adopted in native English, morphological processes that have a bearing on the phonological usage, etc. need to be revisited and drilled. Auditory comprehension holds the key, but auditory comprehension is related also to the other language skills.

11. A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND CAUTION

It is not easy to compete with the medical transcription professionals in the western nations. They have all the advantage, but still, outsourcing or not, Indian boys and girls can develop a professional attitude to the career they have adopted and contribute to the field, with the help of linguistics scholars, something original even as they overcome the handicaps of being the second language users of English, and consequent backbiting, and campaigns against the Indian professionals that will crop up in the newspapers now and then. But, ultimately, honest work, truthfulness, and diligence will win the day.

Medical Transcription Resources
We have listed, below, some useful sites for medical transcriptionists. We have also added a section of links for those people wanting to do medical transcription training and for those people interested in finding companies offering transcription services.
Useful Sites

LabCorp - Laboratory Testing Guide
On-line directory of services, published proceedures and interpretive guide.

MT Desk
Weekly updates of medical terms, drugs, devices, medical and surgical glossary plus links to top medical information resources.

MT-Advisor
Your E-Guide to Medical Transcription

MT World
Medical transcription, work at home business and career tips.

Vanka's Medical Links for MTs
An extensive and comprehensive site of medical links for medical transcriptionists and other medical professionals.

American Association for Medical Transcription
Professional organisation for the advancement of medical transcription and for the education and development of medical transcriptionists as medical language specialists.

MedWord Medical Transcription
A Site For Medical Transcription, Coding, and Billing Courses, Books, Terminology, Information, Resources, and Drug Reference.

MT Daily
A networking centre for transcription industry, with moderated message boards and more.

MT India
Medical Transcription in India.

MT-ETC
Medical Transcription Jobs & List.

Productivity Talk
Website and forums for productivity in medical transcription using word processors and specific tools.

Transcription Prescription
Resources for MT students and MTs.

University of Iowa Family Practice Handbook
Family practice handbook by the Departments of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at University of Iowa.

Xtant Medical Transcription Resources
Provides relevant links and information to web sites included in the Medical Transcription industry.

Yahoo Health Drug Index
Searchable index and directory of drugs provided by Yahoo.

Transcription Services

Iris Medical Transcription

Med-e-Com

MedGarde

Medical Management Services, Inc

Medical Technologies-World

Mediscriber Medical Transcription

MedScribe Information Systems

Medsoft USA

SpectraMedi

Taurus Data Links

The Medical Transcription Company

Transolutions Inc

USATasp

Transcription Training

Career Step
Medical transcription school and training.

MediTec
Specializing in medical training online, medical billing training, medical coding school and medical transcription courses.

CAI Transcription
Home Medical Transcription Courses.

Indian Institute Of Medical Transcription
Offers information on the courses and study centres

Independent Homeworkers Alliance (The)
Virtual learning centre. Helping you to learn online with courses on medical transcription and more.

Laird's School Of Medical Transcription
Learn to be a medical transcriptionist at home through distance education.

Medical Transcription Education Center, inc
Strengthening the MT Industry through Quality Education.

CareerAge - Medical Transcription

Introduction

Medical Transcription is the most recent and fastest growing IT-enabled service in India. In hospitals across the US, doctors are short of time to fill up the medical records of their patients. These medical records, however, are very important for them, since they form the basis of retreiving money through processing of insurance claims. Therefore, the doctors in US record their findings into the computers with voice recognition technologies. These recorded voice signals are sent to companies outside US via satellite links. The companies employ medical transcriptionists who hear these records, and process the data into a word procesor. These transcribed medical records are then sent back to the source electronically.

This process takes advantage of the time difference between India and US. Recorded messages gemerated in US during the day can be transcribed within 24 hours and sent back to the doctors by their next morning. Since labour in India is cheap, it becomes a preferred location for outsourcing the job.

Nature of Work

Being a medical transcriptionist requires:

1. A very good command over the English language
2. Good listening and comprehension skills
3. Understanding of American way of speech and accent
4. Familiarity with medical terminolgy and grammar
5. A good typing speed is an added advantage

Personality

Medical transcription is a profession which demands a very good co-ordination between the mind, ears, eyes and the hands. It requires a lot of accuracy in terms of listening to and understanding the dictation being given in American way of speech, and then typing it at a fast pace with a correct grammar and spellings. One needs to keep updated on the medical technology and new terms in the diagnosis and diseases front. The job requires a lot of hard work, dedication and committment to deliver the best.

Professional Courses

There are scores of institutes that offer training programmes on Medical Transcription. A whole lot of companies in the major metros have already signed the contracts and started work in this area. Since this job requires experience, these companies are expected to recruit a lot of people as trainees and then develop their skills so that they become experts in this field.

Career Prospects

The medical transcription industry has its genesis in US. Health care is the second largest industry in US with a very high growth rate. Hence, the volume of outsourcing work which originates from there is very high and is expected to grow in future. This career offers a tremendous potential for growth.

Remunerations

As a trainee, a medical transcriptionist can expect to get a stipend between Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 5000. Once the training is successfully completed, the person usually would get a starting salary between Rs. 5000 to Rs. 7000


Academy Of Medical Transcription, New Delhi, (Delhi)
Academy Of Medical Transcription, C-5/32, Safdarjung Development Area, Opp. IIT Main Gate, New Delhi 110016

Bajaj Institute Of Information Technology (BIIT), Unit No-1, 1st Floor, C-4E Market Janak Puri, New Delhi 110058, (Delhi)
Bajaj Institute Of Information Technology (BIIT), Unit No-1, 1st Floor, C-4E Market Janak Puri, New Delhi 110058

Indian Institute Of Medical Transcription (IIMT), H-15, South Extn. Part-1, New Delhi 110049, (Delhi)
Indian Institute Of Medical Transcription (IIMT), H-15, South Extn. Part-1, New Delhi 110049

Karltech Medical Transcription PVT LTD, 344 Block II, Ganga Shopping Complex, Sector 29, Noida, (Uttar Pradesh)
Karltech Medical Transcription PVT LTD, (An Indo-American Joint Venture), 344 Block II, Ganga Shopping Complex, Sector 29, Noida

KITCO, 4, Amrit Nagar, South Ext. 1, New Delhi 110003, (Delhi)
KITCO, 4, Amrit Nagar, South Ext. 1, New Delhi 110003

MDS Infotech LTD, B-219, Saraswati Vihar, Pitampura, Delhi 110034, (Delhi)
MDS Infotech LTD, (A Member Of American Association For Medical Transcription), B-219, Saraswati Vihar, Pitampura, Delhi 110034

Medical Transcription Education Center, H.O. 245-B (3 rd Floor), Main Road, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, New Delhi 110065, (Delhi)
Medical Transcription Education Center, (An Education Unit Of Ancient Global Solutions), H.O. 245-B (3 rd Floor), Main Road, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, New Delhi 110065

Meditransindia (MTI), 29/1, Ashok Nagar, Jail Road, Tilak Nagar Circle, New Delhi 110018, (Delhi)
Meditransindia (MTI), 29/1, Ashok Nagar, Jail Road, Tilak Nagar Circle, New Delhi 110018

Shivam Institute Of medical Transcription (SIMT), D-53 Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-1, New Delhi 110020, (Delhi)
Shivam Institute Of medical Transcription (SIMT), D-53 Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-1, New Delhi 110020