CMT

This is something only medical transcriptionists would be even vaguely interested in, so here’s your fair warning. CMT is Certified Medical Transcriptionist — a certification visited on those who successfully pass the knowledge and performance examination adminstered by the American Association for Medical Transcription. You must have 2 years’ experience in acute care before attempting the exam, and to maintain the certification, you must complete continuing education requirements. Well, there are arguments pro and con as to why in the world an MT would even WANT to pursue the certification, and I’ll tread there in a future posting. I just know that, for personal reasons, I wanted to put a professional stamp somehow on this “career path” I had chosen (or fallen into, depending on how one looks at it). It was at a time in my life where I felt totally superfluous and unimportant. The whole exercise: studying on a regular basis (I bought The Language of Medicine and worked through the entire book — I made flash cards for Latin roots and anatomy terms), traveling alone to the nearby city where the test was administered and staying overnight all by myself at a nice hotel, then actually taking the exam — dealing with the nervous anxiety, the doubt — and finally seeing that final screen on the monitor that stated I had actually passed — it was all well worth the effort and expense. Now, I’m approaching my first cycle of recertification and am putting off getting those final continuing education credits. So I need to spend THIS summer, as I did that summer 3 years ago, organizing, studying, setting goals, so that I can complete that (there is NO WAY I want to take that frickin’ exam again!!).