More Than One Way

I really thought that I would be finished with school by now. I plowed my way through the objective portion in a month. Of course I thought that the practicum would fly by as well. Part of slowing down was just trying to figure out the dictations. Poor audio quality and learning medical terminology is not in any way conducive to making things go quickly.

It may be frustrating to me that I'm not finished yet, but I'm learning that I have options I may not have had before starting the course.

Huh? What options could there be? You're only 2/3 through the transcriptions and have the editor modules to do as well. What are you talking about? You're stuck!

Oh, not so! Not so at all. I'm very comfortable sitting at my desk with my headphones attached to my head. My fingers quite confidently tap the keys that I want them to. My hands only ache during weather changes I've noticed. That is something I can deal with as needed. So what am I talking about?

Transcription. Who said that we're only supposed to do one kind of transcription in order to earn our living? I need to be working now. Two or three months from now, my money situation isn't going to get any better unless I do something about it.

I've put together a very rudimentary resume and started putting out feelers to companies that have general transcription services. I KNOW I can type these. It's just a matter of identifying more than one voice at a time and dealing with audio issues. Yes, that's a very simplistic viewpoint. The hardest thing about medical transcription is the getting values, lab data, procedures, and terminology correct. At least, those are the most difficult things for me. Please don't remind me about the East Indian ESLs.

With general transcription there will be specialized terminology based on the dictation type, but this is okay. I've got one humdinger of a vocabulary! I love new words. Once I get one in my head and have looked it up, it's usually going to stick for a while, especially when I use it more than once or twice during one report and don't see it again for a while.

Look, the way I see it, I'll be doing myself a favor. I can't stand not working and providing for my family, and I'm no longer able to work outside the home. I've got two options. I can work solely on my reports for the course and limit my ability to provide by only applying for Medical Transcription. Or, I can start getting off my duff and TCB! With General Transcription jobs, I can start getting my feet wet with transcribing, still work on the course, and provide some much-needed income.

Of course, this really depends on whether or not anyone is hiring for general typing jobs and whether or not they're interested in hiring a qualified and potentially amazing new transcriptionist. I've seen too many general typing jobs advertised to not start throwing applications at them!

I'm not giving up on MT! I'm just adding another layer of skills and experience. I'm good with multitasking!