Medical Transcription and Spelling Ability

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As a professional medical transcriptionist, the ability to spell is crucial to your success. Spelling errors will hold you back in terms of raises, and also in getting your work done in a timely and efficient manner.

Do you know the difference between "their", "there" and "they're"? How about "effect" and "affect", or "its" and "it's"? Many people don't really catch the differences between these words when they see them, but your editor will, you can bet on it.

A spell check program will help you a great deal, but it won't catch the situations above, and there will be many words or phrases not included which are unique to the medical field. Even a medical spell check program will not include every word you come across.

The medical field changes every day and you must take the responsibility to keep your skills up. Again, you must know when to override the spell check program's recommendations.

And do not depend on the doctor's spelling. They will frequently not know they do not know the proper spelling of a word. They will often make up their own words, words that become a part of their vernacular and you must decide the appropriate and consistent way to spell this word or phrase.

Often the other doctors who work with this person will pick this term up and start using it as well. Soon it is in hospital-wide use and is essentially a made-up word.

Until you are able to transcribe a report in which there are no spelling errors, you will never advance out of having your work checked through the quality assurance (QA) department. And as we've said before, until you advance out of QA, you will not reach your full earning potential.

This cannot be stressed enough: You must have excellent spelling skills. As noted above, if you feel you are lacking in this department, contact your local school district or community college for adult continuing education classes to help with weak spelling skills. The classes may be free of charge or have a nominal fee attached. If you feel you cannot afford this, the library is an excellent resource.

If you want to get the real story about what it’s really like to be a professional medical transcriptionist, then you should pick up a copy of Inside Medical Transcription by Pam Lyon. You can get your copy here.