Medical Transcription, A Nurse's Way to Success

When America’s huge baby boomer population hits retirement age a
few years from now, their healthcare requirements will skyrocket,
creating an unprecedented need for highly skilled care providers,
including nurses. What’s more, with an average age of 46.8 years
(up from 42.3 in 1996), the nursing workforce is aging too. Over the
next 20 years, a whole generation of RNs will be retiring from the
profession, putting an even tighter squeeze on an already urgent
need for more nurses. In fact, the Health Resources and Services
Adminstration (HRSA) projects that demand for nurses will increase
to 41% between the years 2000 and 2020.

Some of the challenges faced by immigrant nurses from the
Philippines are the same now as they were 20 or even 50 years ago
and continue to become more complex. Today’s new arrivals
encounter a more complex work environment than that of a generation
ago, including new high-tech equipment, paperless records, increased
regulation, utilization review guidelines and new disease management
concepts, to name just a few. Language difference is another source
of culture shock. Even though nurses trained in the Philippines speak
English, they often have trouble deciphering the varied American
accents and idiomatic expressions.

The fast-paced, high-tech world of nursing profession in the United
States is not for a newbie graduate of nursing course here in the
Philippines. If you are someone who thrives on challenges and are
waiting for your papers to be processed, Medical Transcription gives
you a better chance to prepare and transition faster to your life in the
US.

Medical transcriptionists are trained to listen to different accents and
slang expressions of foreign doctors. It improves language and
communication skills as they listen to US doctors’ medical dictation.
It gives them familiarity to current medical treatment practices in the
US healthcare industry. Following the paperless law of the United
States, medical transcriptionists are in demand, even employers in
some hospitals prefer those transcriptionist with a nursing background
or any allied health related courses.

Medical transcription is a profession which demands a very good
coordination among the mind, ears, eyes, hands and the feet. It
requires a lot of accuracy in terms of listening to and understanding
the dictation being given in an American way of speech and then
typing it at a fast pace with correct grammar and spelling. One needs
to be kept updated on the medical technology and new terms in the
diagnosis and disease frontline. The job requires a lot of hard work,
dedication and commitment to deliver the best, the same attitude a
US practicing nurse needs.