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The Laws of Medical Transcription


1. When a doctor carefully and distinctly spells out the name of a patient, drug, body part or referring doctor, it will be spelled WRONG.

2. If a doctor calls from the O.R., incoherent with rage because a note he/she dictated is not done and the patient in question is anesthetized on the table, that note will have been dictated on the Dictaphone that is sitting inside the doctor’s pocket.

3. A dictation that is stat, urgent and absolutely vital to the patient’s care will be dictated into a Dictaphone with dead batteries.

4. When dictating an involved neurosurgical op report involving rarely used instruments and multiple complications, the doctor will be sitting next to either a beeping ventilator in a crowded ICU or a screaming infant.

5. The speed at which an ESL doctor dictates is increased in direct proportion to the thickness of his/her accent: i.e., ESL = mc2 = total incomprehensibility.

6. A doctor who is a crystal clear, concise and organized dictator whom you love to transcribe for, within 15 days from the moment you begin working on his/her account will decide to accept a job at another hospital.

7. The above mentioned crystal clear, concise and organized dictator will be replaced by the only doctor in the Western Hemisphere who has both a lisp AND a stutter.

8. A doctor with a sexy, deep voice that turns your knees to Jell-O and your skin to goose-flesh will have a stomach the consistency of Jell-O and a face that resembles a goose.