New MTs Keep a Word Log.....

When I first started medical transcription, before I developed an ear for transcribing, I started a word log. A word log is very simple thing; it's just a list of medical words that you have trouble hearing (or doctors have trouble pronouncing correctly) when you're a new MT, and you use the list to jog your memory.

My word log was a Word document that I would open, plop the troublesome word into and close. I didn't alphabetize it or number the entries. It was just a quick open/paste/close process done on the fly.

I would also make a note of any routine unintelligible mumbles that certain doctors made, along with the doctors' names, so I could search the list by doctor name. I also included multiple pronunciations, by different doctors, of the same word and sometimes the definition of the word. Also included were incorrect spellings that doctors would offer up, so I'd know the docs were wrong. I'd include my "sounds like" along with the word so I could just search for the sounds-like word and voila, there it would be...well, most of the time.

I don't remember how long I kept making entries in my word log, probably for a couple of years. I don't need it anymore, but it's still on my computer. I took a look at it today, and there were 2870 entries! Just for old times sake, I looked through it today, alphabetized it, and noticed that I had entered some words over and over again. Here are some that I apparently just couldn't get through my thick skull and had entered them repeatedly in my list. Psoas and parenchymal were real troublemakers for me, I see.

ACTeRS Scale

ACTeRS, ADHD

ACTeRS not Actors

B&O suppositories not Beano

B&O suppositories not Beano

B&O

Burstin method - estimating normal PA pressure per Dr. D. griseofulvin - Dr. M. says viziofoma

mesothelioma

mesothelioma - Dr. C. says mesothyloma

MIC-Key G-tube

MIC-Key G-tube NOT McKee or Mickey

Moraxella catarrhalis

Moraxella catarrhalis - Dr. S. says moxala cataralis

NIR Primo stent

NIR Primo

NIR stent – cardiology

Omphalocele

Omphalocele

omphalocele - oooomfa seal

parenchyma - Dr. D. says preenka

parenchyma clear

parenchyma

parenchymal – prinkal

parenchymal

psoas muscle (s/l sose)

psoas sign

psoas shadow (s/l 4th shadow)

psoas Rovsings signs

psoas sign

ptosis (sag or fall in eyelid)

Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test

Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test - peds psych

Wenckebach phenomena - Dr. O. says winky doc

Wenckebach

Wenckebach

Zeloda - WRONG - spelled Xeloda

Zyrtec, not Certec as Dr. R. spells it