You know it's time to quit when ...

I've probably mentioned this before, but I have a part-time job doing medical transcription. Four hours a day, five days a week. I enjoy the work for the most part, but bless their hearts, for all their schooling and training, sometimes doctors can be real idiots. Sorry, Phil - I should rephrase that. Some of them can be real idiots.

I know what the problem is. They have so many other more important things on their minds that dictation gets pushed way down on the priority list. It's a necessary evil, something they just have to do, and most of the time they just want to get through it as quickly as possible. Usually without thinking that there's someone like me - intelligent and capable as I am ;) - listening on the other end, trying to figure out what in the world you meant when you said the patient had previously received "two farts injections" and they didn't help. Well, I should think not.

I've been thinking about this since yesterday and I still don't know what this doctor meant when she dictated that. Yes, it was a woman, but men are just as bad. It's not a gender thing. It's an "I'm in a hurry and I really don't want to be doing this in the first place" thing. I had a doctor tell me once that the patient weighed 64 inches. Umm ... how much does an inch weigh?

Here are a few other notable bloopers I've come across in my 16+ years of experience:

"The patient smoked one pack of cigarettes for 40 years." (Dang, that's what I call making something last as long as possible.)

"The patient's ankle ulcers are reported to be healing at the Wound Care Center." (You mean, he just dropped them off and is going to pick them up when they're ready?)

"The patient's mother may have had heart disease, but she lived until she died very quietly at 93." (I can't even begin to explain all the things that are funny with that one.)

And my absolute all time favorite - it's not really a blooper, it's just hilarious:

"The patient takes a memory pill, the name of which she does not know."

If you recognize any of these statements, it means I have worked for you at some point in my life - but don't worry, I still love you. The WMVR and I used to work in the same office, and we dubbed ourselves the "Department of Image Control". The WMVR's definition of a good transcriptionist? We listen to what the doctor says, and then we type what he meant. I actually had a former production supervisor tell me to "please make them not sound stupid." You know, we try, but sometimes it's hard. Like the "farts injections" yesterday. If anyone (Phil?) has any idea what she meant by that, please let me know. And to put your minds at ease, no, I did not type it that way - I put in a QA marker. Maybe someone else can figure out what she really said.

The illustrious BMWs meet tonight, and I'm expecting it to be a really great session. I have pages (the last two chapters of the WIP - which now has a TITLE, thanks to the brilliant and talented JT Ellison), JT has pages, and a couple of the others might bring in what they've been working on (we hope). Now, if I can just remember how to set the VCR to tape Criminal Minds and CSI:NY I'll be a happy camper.

Music of the Moment: Gustav Holst, The Planets, Op. 32: Mars, the Bringer of War

That piece is in 5/4 time. Talk about challenging - to direct and to play. But man, with all the brass and thundering percussion ... great stuff.

I'm off to conquer day three now ...

Read a book. It's good for you.

=) JB