Medical Transcription / Kafka

You may ask: How is “medical transcription” Kafkaesque? The way I like to look at it (to help keep me from going insane), is that….in the same way a literary genius like Kafka held a mundane job, I am a medical transcriptionist. Although, in my case, you’d have to leave out the “literary” and “genius” part. I just like to think that someday I’ll get my act together and spend my time away from work creating amazing works of art. Unfortunately, that’s what I’ve been hoping for the past 25 years and it has yet to become a reality. Oh…and anyone out there reading this who IS a medical transcriptionist would likely agree that the job itself can be Kafkaesque.

I am grateful for being able to work from home, and reports can be interesting or challenging at times. Over the years, I’ve had to keep up with varying technologies. But the face of this “career” has changed much over the past decade. More later…

In the meantime, in a nutshell — to describe what I do: I first learned medical transcription on-site ages ago at an OB-GYN clinic. From there, worked at a hospital, then at another hospital when we relocated to another state (in those days, hospitals were desperate to find qualified people who could do this, so it was pretty easy to finagle your own schedule — as long as you agreed to work some weekends). Then when Internet usage became more commonplace, I began to work for distant medical transcription services from home: transcribing hospital reports primarily. And here I am to this day doing the SAME THING! Yes — it’s sitting in front of a computer, listening to physicians drone on. And, yes, speech recognition is changing the face of this job, but I hope that I am retired by the time it completely takes over. Based on how many (make that most) physicians speak, I’m not sure if it ever will 100% replace us.

Yes…more later…