Inside Medical Transcription

Want a sample medical transcription resume to follow in order to know what should be included in a resume? Well here it is! For those in the medical transcription profession, this will gain you instant credibility within the medical field.

Here are some important tips to follow:

1) Be as succinct as possible in your medical transcription resume, and highlight what skill sets you bring to the table.

2) Limit your resume to one page. People are too busy these days to read more than one page and are often overwhelmed due to information overload.

3) Zero in on the key skill sets being sought for this particular medical transcription position. Explain how your skills are a perfect match for this position.

4) Include other vital information, such as volunteer work or supervisory/managerial positions that you’ve held while working as a medical transcriptionist.

5) Tailor your medical transcription resume to each specific job for which you are applying. This is important! Do not submit a one-type-fits-all resume.

Here is a sample medical transcription resume that this author has used to land a few outside medical transcription contractor jobs for orthopedic surgeons in private practice. It demonstrates how to put all five points into action. (Please note that headings should be centered and bolded.)

PERSONAL CONTACT INFORMATION

(insert your personal contact info here, including your e-mail address)

ADMINISTRATIVE QUALIFICATIONS

Typing speed of 120-130 w.p.m. with 98% accuracy; excellent command of the English language; strong editing, grammar, and punctuation skills; ability to edit “on the fly” when taking patient histories and when transcribing medical reports, making paragraphs flow smoothly; and solid computer (hardware and software) skills, saving the company down time and money.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP SKILLS

Ability to put people at ease and to establish immediate rapport; ability to control the history interview process, keeping the patient on track; and getting salient information in a timely manner, all in a congenial and empathetic way. Cooperates and works well with co-workers, willingly shares new technical and medical information. Professional, dedicated, and committed to the success of the company through collaborative efforts with others.

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION-SPECIFIC SKILLS

Good command/understanding of workers’ compensation field, thus enabling me to ask the pertinent questions that will enable the doctor to intelligently address important workers’ compensation issues (e.g., permanent disability, apportionment, and causation); over five years of experience taking patient histories (ranging from basic to complicated) on a daily basis, specializing in the field of orthopedics; and over 14 years of experience as a medical transcriptionist, historian, and medical records reviewer.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Company Name, Address, City State, Zip, Phone Number Employed From: June 19xx to 20xx Supervisor: Jane Doe

Company Name, Address, City State, Zip, Phone Number Employed From: June 19xx to 20xx Supervisor: Jane Doe

Depending on how much information and work experience you have, there may be room at the bottom of the page. If so, include this section:

QUALITIES AND CHARACTER TRAITS

Innovative, creative, proactive, energetic visionary, resourceful self-starter; practical, self-reliant, motivated problem-solver; versatile, talented trainer/teacher; organized, personable, and reliable support person with a winning attitude who takes great pride in meeting and exceeding her own definition and standard of excellence.

One last point: The very last sentence of the resume is a powerful thing-if the resume has been read all the way through. You can-and I have done this-use that very same sentence-at the TOP of the resume to grab the reader’s attention. When you do, change the heading to: SELF-ASSESSMENT STATEMENT.

Now isn’t that a powerful sample medical transcription resume? As a secondary benefit, when a medical transcription resume is this solid, this good, it will make it even easier for you to sell yourself to a prospective employer when you meet face to face because you will have all the self-confidence you need to make your case and get that medical transcription job you want when you follow this medical transcription resume format!

The correct attitude for a Medical Transcriptionist should be one of independence and responsibility for his or her work. Medical Transcriptionists function with a minimum of direct supervision. The majority do have an immediate supervisor somewhere responsible for quality control. Working as a professional Medical Transcriptionist means to take pride in the accuracy and completeness of your work. A professional gains satisfaction from a job well done.

Excellent proofreading skills are critical for a Medical Transcriptionist. Proofreading is looking for mistakes of all types in a transcribed document and correcting them. The most common errors a Medical Transcriptionist will be looking for include:

• Omission of important dictated words

• Selecting the wrong English or medical word

• Misspelling words

• Typographical errors

• Grammatical errors

• Punctuation errors

Proofreading skills will improve with practice. You will know what your areas of weaknesses are as you proofread and find your errors. If you find that you miss few medical words, but misspell many English words, you can improve by paying particular interest in English words as you transcribe and proofread dictation.

Consider the following four-step method to help you achieve the best results from your proofreading:

1. Look words up in reference books as you encounter them. Dont wait until the end of the report. You will have forgotten how some of the words sounded. Search until you find and dont go any further in your medical transcribing until you find the words you get stumped on. Leave a blank if you exhaust all resources and still cannot find your word.

2. Briefly proofread what you transcribe as it appears on the screen of your word processor or the paper you are typing on. This will help you catch missed words and typographical errors as they occur. Print out your reports on paper if you are using a word processor. It is easier to proofread the printed report on paper than it is on the screen.

3. If you just cannot find a word, leave a blank of an appropriate length, according to how long or short the word sounds. Attach a flag (a flag is a sheet of paper clipped to the report or a sticky note placed on the report which identifies all blanks, which lines of the report they are located on, and what the dictated word sounded like to you.

4. Use a medical or English spellchecker as the final step in proofreading. Spellcheckers will not catch errors such as transcribing no instead of not or transcribing ilium instead of ileum.

Excellent proofreading skills come only after continual practice to perfect. Consider the following tips:

• To avoid omitting important dictated words adjust the speed control on the transcriber unit and transcribe slowly to assure no dictated words are overlooked. Slowly increase your speed of the tape, which will increase transcription speed as you learn to keep up with the dictator.

• The tape recording (if you are transcribing from a tape) does not perfectly reproduce the human voice. Sometimes the words and phrases sound garbled or something quite different from what they really are. A Medical Transcriptionist should never transcribe what he or she thinks they hear. You should transcribe only what makes sense in the context of the report. Careful word searching and careful attention to word definitions help the Medical Transcriptionist to avoid selecting the wrong English or medical word. The wrong medical word can convey a wrong diagnosis for a patient. The error can be carried in the patients permanent medical record and cause extreme havoc and chaos. The professional Medical Transcriptionist NEVER transcribes anything that does not make sense and/or cannot be verified in a reference book. In other words, dont just make up a word either just to fill in all the blanks. It is better to leave a blank.

• Misspelling of medical and English words can be avoided by careful proofreading and using a spellchecker.

• Typographical errors are usually the result of carelessness or attempts to type too fast rather than focusing on accuracy. Careful proofreading will eliminate typographical errors.

• Grammatical errors are hard to catch while transcribing and must be identified through careful proofreading.

• Punctuation errors can actually change the medical meaning of a sentence. Keep your punctuation references within easy reach.

Medical Transcription is one of the most popular business and home is always high on the list of those wanting to work at home. Running his own business of medical transcription involves writing medical notes, including a history and physical, operative reports, follow-up reports etc, so that the doctor has detailed information about that patient. The doctor also needs to send a medical transcription to insurance companies so that he / she may be reimbursed for services rendered.

A keen sense of sight is an ace in the game for medical transcription. A typical hearing alone does not guarantee a 100% accuracy in medical transcripts they produce. If you want to master the art of medical transcription, you need to have a well-developed sense of hearing. In this area, you can not afford to make mistakes when you’re writing what the doctor says. This is because there is a very thin line between the pronunciation of each word as to the terms “rock” and “Iraq”. And, in a case like this, misheards could mean a slight difference between life and death, especially when we are dealing with patients medicines. We all know it’s hard to find a doctor Transcriptionist who was born with an excellent sense of hearing. However, it does come with practice. You have a great potential for good listening skills. As always say “practice makes perfect.” You can start your training by the ears English watching TV or talking to different types of people and studying their speech patterns and pronunciation. Also, you can start listening to different accents in English from Americans, Australians, British, Mexican, Indian or doctors. Actually, it is their choice. Although, the best approach is the actual medical dictation, you can also improve through the use of medical practice transcript of tapes.

But what are the medical transcription practice tapes? In fact, the practice of medical transcription tape recording and storage devices are used by doctors to their dictates, which become as wav files or on the computer voice like that of an mp3. However, there are also doctors practice of transcribing tapes used by students in some schools, medical transcription, which can be purchased online. This is not really that different from those used by doctors, except for the fact that they can be used for a specific purpose. The practice of medical transcription tapes as its name indicates only used for practice and not for the actual transcript. That contain either real or simulated doctor dictates. The practice of medical transcription tapes are for use by beginners who have no real exposure to the doctor dictates, as well as the already established medical transcriptionists who just want to reach a higher level of competence in the matter.

Although the practice of medical transcription tapes can be rented, the best choice for beginners is perhaps have a copy of your account. These days, no need to visit a specific store to purchase the medical practice of transcribing tapes. They are available online from several Web sites that specialize in medical transcription. Usually come in two sizes, which is standard-sized medical transcription and practice tapes of micro-size medical practice transcript of tapes.

The length of the dictation of these doctors practice tapes and transcripts of the level of the words’ difficulty also vary. As an additional feature, answers are always the keys to compare their work.

Who said he can not learn on their own must be lying. The practice of medical transcription tapes can truly make a difference in the performance of the team, though it must have knowledge of medical terminology in advance. In fact, for starters, the first real exposure to dictates could give the edge you need, and for seasoned transcriptionists, or people going back on the field of medical transcription, the extra practice definitely improve the skills needed to become a True language specialist physician.