This is it! My Medical Transcription Journey...

This is what I've been waiting for. On the first day of October, I'll be starting my work as a home-based medical transcriptionist. I recalled back then when I was just planning to take up a medical transcription course, I was hoping to be working at home someday. Of course, after I finished the course, like any other jobs, it hasn't been that easy. I thought I can already work at home but I learned that being a home transcriptionist would entail a lot of experience on the field. Since you will be working independently, you must gain first the needed skills and knowledge just like any other home-based jobs like web designing, web programming, medical coding, etc.

My journey in medical transcription was a bit of a roller coaster. There were moments when I almost gave up. Being the only graduate of a non-medical course, there's an extra pressure on my part to be perseverant. By the way, I'm a graduate of Computer Science so most medical terms were new to me back then unlike my classmates who were graduate of medical courses like nursing, physical therapy, and medical technology. What I did was I studied hard, watched online lectures (University of Berkley anatomy class) and even watched House MD series (this became one of my favorite series). Thus, the hardwork really paid off. After finishing the course, I landed on one of the BPO companies here in Davao City as an on-the-job trainee. Then after a month, I became contractual, then probationary, and eventually I became regular. What I like about medical transcription is that we constantly update our knowledge. Everyday, in each file, we learn something, may it be a simple grammar, a new medical term, or a new English word. I continued my training in that company giving my best every file. Of course, it wasn't easy. There are a lot of medical terms but nevertheless, I can say that among my teammates, modesty aside, my computer research skill is on an advanced level ((giggles)). Eventually, with a little of luck and hardwork, I was promoted to MT Editor. Being an editor helped me to improve more my accuracy since through editing, I was exposed to more files and more doctors and my proofreading skills are also improved as well.

Unfortunately, the company has to give up the client as well as our department due to financial reasons. I wasn't sad at all since I thought to myself that my teammates and I were experienced enough to be easily accepted in other companies. We learned that Davao city has only a small pool of medical transcriptionists and only few are experienced. So, that's why we're confident enough to easily acquire a new job. But luckily (luck and God's blessing have played a big part on this journey), our client from abroad called our team leader and requested the team to continue in a home based setting. We learned that they normally don't accept home transcriptionists here in the Philippinbes. They only accept company based medical transcription staff. That's why we felt so lucky since we were one of the few who were accepted to be home transcriptionists. And that's how we reached this new phase of our career as medical transcriptionists. We are on our last week of the application process and we will be starting next week. Aja!