Naveen’s Blog

Being in the field of transcription for the last four years, associated with a company or a home-based transcription provider, I wanted to write a review about this field.  I get inquiries about medical transcription training and future prospects in Orkut and other forums where I participate.  This article can help the people whether or not to choose this field.  This review is limited to choosing medical transcription as a career in India, especially Hyderabad, and not in foreign countries.

I started my career as a medical transcriptionist in the year 2004.  At that time I was in the field of express cargo and logistics and there were frequent transfers to anywhere in India.  At that time, it was necessary for me to be in Hyderabad because of my education and my brother’s.  So, I started looking at other opportunities where I can get good salary, less stress, and somewhat interesting job.  At that time, medical transcription was catching up and heard good things about it.  So, I took the test, succeeded, and joined for transcription training.  Within a year or so, I was able to make the salary, which I was earning in my previous job.

It was good.  It has improved my English, communication skills, and presentation skills.  Being a Telugu medium student, it was so difficult for me to express my thoughts in good English.

After working hard for three years, I started realizing that there is little growth in this field.  Unlike other fields, it is difficult to reach higher levels.  At the same time, it is also easy to reach if you have exceptional listening skills.  There are three levels in this field, medical transcriptionist, proofreader, and quality analyst.  Becoming proofreader is very hard.  It requires exceptional listening skills, which everyone may not have and lot of transcriptionists end up at the stage of medical transcriptionist itself.  90-95% people leave their job after few years realizing that their pay is not going to rise.  A senior transcriptionist can earn anywhere from 10-15 thousands and proofreaders can earn anywhere from 15-25.  QAs will earn 5-10K more.  But, these salaries will become stagnant and one would get easily frustrated.  If you start your career lately in MT and realize after three or four years that your salary is not rising at the phase you thought, you certainly want to leave this field, but at that time you will also find that you have become “age barred” for other fields.  So, while choosing it as a career, think about it twice.  As soon as you realize that your skills are just limited to MT, then leave it as soon as possible and jump into another field.

Pros:

• Education and age are no bar in this field.  You just need to pass out a general English test.  That’s all!
• You will get chance to improve you written and spoken English skills, which are mandatory to succeed in any job.
• You will get an immense knowledge related to health, which is going to help you throughout your life.
• Flexible working hours, which is a hard-to-find thing in any other job.
• Low stressful job.
• You can work from home.  There are lot of companies ready to provide you work to do from home.
• Getting job in another company is just two or three days matter.
• You can walk into any MT company at anytime to see if they have openings and almost all companies will be ready to take the MTs/Proofers/QAs throughout the year, which you cannot see in any other job.

Cons:

• As stated above, pay hikes are limited, which is the main thing 90-95% people leaving this job after working for few years.
• Few MTs cannot progress towards the next level, proofreader, because of poor listening skills, which is not going to be improved with hard work.
• This experience will not help you get a job in any other industry.
• Wearing headphones, listening to voice, and typing keys for a prolonged period of time may cause significant health issues.

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Though I am a medical transcriptionist, I write more on software and technology than medical articles. My blog is showing only one article in “Medical” column, so this is the second and it is from my experience.

A month or two ago, I got throat infection from drinking contaminated water in my office.  It took three days to resolve and return to my job.  After that, I significantly reduced my water intake in fear of getting the infection again as it was so painful with cough, temporary loss of voice, and chest pain.  Few weeks ago, I started developing back pain.  Sometimes, it was so severe that I needed to go to the office corridor and take a brisk walk to get rid of the pain.  Slowly, the pain started radiating to the front part of the belly.  Few days ago, I got a severe pain with sweating and I was unable to tolerate the pain.  I left the office and went directly to the clinic.  Doctor gave me some painkiller and told me to come in the morning for a scanning.  As appendicitis was running in my family history, I thought I might have gotten appendicitis.

Next day, doctor done an ultrasonography and told me that I got stones in both kidneys, which are ranging from 5 mm-8 mm.  He advised me to drink plenty of water and avoid spinach and tomato and cut down the intake of dairy products.  He told me that the stones will dilute in water and go away in urine.

From the above experience, I realized that cutting down the water can harm our health this much  Then, I started browsing the medical sites to gather the info about kidney stones and precautions to take.

So, are you drinking enough water daily? If not, start drinking water at least two liters a day.  Mayo Clinic article on water describes that one should drink at least 1.9 liters or eight 8-ounce glasses of water daily.  It tells that:

Water is your body’s principal chemical component, making up, on average, 60 percent of your body weight. Every system in your body depends on water. For example, water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues.

So, keep an eye on your water intake, otherwise you may end up developing some illness.

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\\ tags: kidney stones, water intake

Note: I am not a pharma student to answer your complex pharmaceutical questions.  Please do not ask me to provide some brands data names in excel sheet or the copy of electronic drug reference.  Please go to the above site and purchase it.  Whatever I can provide, I have provided here.  Need more? Then, log into MedCLIK and explore.  Thanks in advance!

When I was in medical transcription training, we were provided with Quick Look Drug Reference for medicine search and its dosage details.  I was surprised to see its features.  It was extensive with all the drug names, brand and generic names, therapeutic category, usage, dose, and dosage forms.  We learned that a generic drug can be sold with different brand names produced by different companies.  For example: aspirin is a generic drug (original formula), which is available under brand names of Ascriptin, Bayer Aspirin, Easprin, Ecotrin, Halfprin, ZORprin, etc (in USA).

After looking at this electronic drug reference for American drugs, I thought that there will be an Indian electronic drug reference.  I searched a lot over the net for nearly one month, but was unable to find it. After passing through class training and on-job training, I was put on regular roles and started searching again.  While searching the Indian Medical Association website, I came to know about the site MedCLIK, which provides an online drug reference for Indian medicines.

Go to http://www.medclik.com/General/pages/drugmanual/Index.asp and select the criteria for search, Generics or Brands. Then it will ask for login name or email ID.  Just put “test” and go on.

In MedCLIK, besides the above information, they also indicate the manufacturers’ name and price.  I think it is very helpful.  If you know a brand, just key in and you can find the generic name of the drug and the list of brands available for that with price and company information.

You can see the below screenshot I have taken for brand search for “gentamicin,” an eye drops preparation.

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\\ tags: drug dictionary, IP, pharmacopeia