This blog is part of a series on transcription. If you haven’t read the other blogs in this series, make sure to check out the summary page for a listing of all transcription blogs.
I have talked about medical transcription with people before where they respond, “Oh, I could never be an MT because I don’t type fast enough.” I always have to shake my head and laugh, because that is a very common misconception.
Question: Is my typing speed as a medical transcriptionist important?
Answer: No, because accuracy is the most important factor, and expanders will help you up your speed anyway. Now, this is just my opinion, and you’ll find that others in the field think very differently on the subject, but since typing is one thing that you will get better as you practice, as long as you can break 30 words per minute at the start of the course, you’ll be just fine, seriously.
There is a huge emphasis on accuracy, and not so much on typing speed. The reason for that is because in the MT world, what you type could have serious medical repercussions down the road. You are a part of compiling a patient’s permanent file, so if you type “fibroadenoma” and it was supposed to be “fibroangioma,” this can end up causing the doctor to make a mistake, and the patient to be seriously injured or killed. In the MT field, it is much more important to be completely accurate than quick.
Also, the doctors tend to say the same things over and over again, which allows an MT to use an expander and thus up their speed that way. No matter how fast you are, someone will be able to type “mt” faster than you can type “medical transcriptionist.”
There is also the fact that since the terminology is so different in the medical field than everyday life, you’ll find yourself spending much of your time (in the beginning anyway) listening and relistening to a section of dictation, and not very much of your time actually typing. You’re still trying to gain your ear, so the typing itself is not the struggle, it’s the understanding that’s the killer. So whether your speed is 130 words per minute or 30 words per minute, you’re still going to struggle and be slow, at least at first. You’ve got time to work on your keyboarding skills–for now, just worry about learning the information itself.
Speaking of typing, be sure to check out my series on Qwerty vs Dvorak. And stick around for tomorrow, where I talk about working at home vs working in an office as a medical transcriptionist. Thanks for reading!