Certified

Having spent many years in the corporate office setting, I knew I had zero interest in returning to an office environment. The drama…the politics…the power struggles…the performance reviews based on predetermined Bell curves and statistical analyses rather than actual performance… No thank you…not interested in the slightest. So, I set about to determine what I could do from home, hang out in my pajamas, and endure a commute of under a minute. I wasn’t looking to get rich, but I wasn’t going to work for minimum wage, either. My husband had a good job (still does), so anything I earned would be for the “extras”…help out with college tuition for our two daughters presently in school and our two sons as yet still in high school…maybe I could make enough to allow my husband to dedicate more time to pursue his photography. So, the search began.

I can’t honestly say how I found medical transcription. I’m not sure if I was Googling related terms and it popped up in the search results, or perhaps I was reminded about the time some 30 years ago when my Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor offered me medical transcription or piano tuning as my two employment options upon high school graduation. It’s been two years ago when this journey began, so I don’t honestly remember. Nevertheless, I began researching medical transcription, and before I knew it I landed at the U.S. Department of Labor discussion of medical transcription as a career choice. I thought this looked pretty promising, so I started to investigate the local training options.

Since I live in Western Washington, I was familiar with Lake Washington Institute of Technology and was pleased to learn that they offered a certificate in medical transcription which could be obtained completely online. I actually attempted to contact the instructor of the program several times to ask about accessibility and the like, but I could never get anyone to return my phone calls. Finally, I spoke with someone in the admissions or customer service arenas, and they referred me to some website I can no longer remember or locate where one could find the MT training options in your state and the number of graduates they produced each year. This led me to Everett Community College which offered a very comprehensive Medical Transcription Certificate Program based on the Career Step curriculum. The program was completely online and encompassed 43-quarter hours spread across three full-time quarters and was intensely focused on medical terminology and grammar and punctuation and offered significant real-world transcription training from actual dictation files. Since I have no way of comparing the training to any other training option out there, I have no idea how it measures up in the grand scheme of things; however, I do know the program was AHDI accredited, and I personally found it interesting and challenging. I was really looking forward to my new career as a medical transcriptionist.

In March of 2011, I completed my MT program with a 3.9 GPA. It was official…I was “certified.”