I'm taking a break from blogging, at least for the rest of the summer. If anyone needs me, I'll be out in the garden.
Have a good summer, everyone.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Frivolity Assurance
I'm renaming my "quality" assurance job as my "frivolity" assurance job.
Thanks to speech recognition, quality has been replaced by frivolity, and I'm just going with the flow. I think of my QA job as my fun job, the job that makes me giggle and smirk, and it's all thanks to speech rec. While I enjoy my MT job (which doesn't use speech recognition) it rarely provides comic relief like my QA speech rec account does. I'm able to see the original speech rec drafts that are edited by the MTs.
Take this bit of nonsense, for example, which is a doctor starting off a dictation by giving the patient's name, date of birth, and her own name. This is what speech rec typed: Patient name _____. The patient remains proper first and I ascertained that there is only me.
Or this, which was also supposed to be the patient's name, date of birth, and doctor's name, but speech rec typed: To suppress the patient, white, our data practice makes it this coming Friday.
I don't know why, but everything speech rec types cracks me up.
This was a nice one too, same information being dictated as above: Start the Patient. Call in quality, a daily breast starting today.
Management is proud of their speech recognition program and advertise it as state of the art. Giggle. Smirk.
Thanks to speech recognition, quality has been replaced by frivolity, and I'm just going with the flow. I think of my QA job as my fun job, the job that makes me giggle and smirk, and it's all thanks to speech rec. While I enjoy my MT job (which doesn't use speech recognition) it rarely provides comic relief like my QA speech rec account does. I'm able to see the original speech rec drafts that are edited by the MTs.
Take this bit of nonsense, for example, which is a doctor starting off a dictation by giving the patient's name, date of birth, and her own name. This is what speech rec typed: Patient name _____. The patient remains proper first and I ascertained that there is only me.
Or this, which was also supposed to be the patient's name, date of birth, and doctor's name, but speech rec typed: To suppress the patient, white, our data practice makes it this coming Friday.
I don't know why, but everything speech rec types cracks me up.
This was a nice one too, same information being dictated as above: Start the Patient. Call in quality, a daily breast starting today.
Management is proud of their speech recognition program and advertise it as state of the art. Giggle. Smirk.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Corruption in the MT business
I mean OS corruption, not MT corruption, not that there isn't any corruption in the MT business (I'm not pointing any fingers here), but that's not the subject of my post today.
My laptop started acting out last week. It wouldn't let me download anything, not even Windows updates, and it wouldn't play video or audio. Audio is the name of the game around here, of course, so this was a serious problem. Not to mention I couldn't watch my Netflix Instant Watch movies on it either, which is also a serious problem.
Since I'm hard on computers, I've learned to keep two identical computers going all the time so I don't have any downtime when this kind of thing happens; when one computer is in the shop, I can continue working on the other one.
Because of my dread of visiting my regular computer guy, The Computer Nazi, I decided to visit the new computer guy who had recently set up shop nearby. Carefully sliding my defunct laptop inside my roomy carry-all bag decorated with pretty cats (a gift from my mother-in-law), I hopped in the car and went to pay the new computer guy a visit.
All in all, the new computer guy was a joy to work with and, courtesy of my many years of listening to Hispanic accents, I was able to make out that the laptop's operating system was corrupted, which he was careful to point out was not my fault (something The Computer Nazi would never have done and, as a matter of fact, would have gone out of his way to find something that was my fault so he could produce a snotty sneer worthy of Draco in Harry Potter). He said that it may have been caused by something to do with a USB device, or something ...whatever... it wasn't my fault, which was all I wanted to hear, and now I will be a loyal customer of his forever.
There must be a moral to this story. We'll say it's to make sure you back up your files, or something along those lines. Or just keep a myriad of computers in your office so no matter what happens, you can always transcribe. Always. And forever.
(And, yes, my two weeks off was wonderful. I hope to do it again some day.)
My laptop started acting out last week. It wouldn't let me download anything, not even Windows updates, and it wouldn't play video or audio. Audio is the name of the game around here, of course, so this was a serious problem. Not to mention I couldn't watch my Netflix Instant Watch movies on it either, which is also a serious problem.
Since I'm hard on computers, I've learned to keep two identical computers going all the time so I don't have any downtime when this kind of thing happens; when one computer is in the shop, I can continue working on the other one.
Because of my dread of visiting my regular computer guy, The Computer Nazi, I decided to visit the new computer guy who had recently set up shop nearby. Carefully sliding my defunct laptop inside my roomy carry-all bag decorated with pretty cats (a gift from my mother-in-law), I hopped in the car and went to pay the new computer guy a visit.
All in all, the new computer guy was a joy to work with and, courtesy of my many years of listening to Hispanic accents, I was able to make out that the laptop's operating system was corrupted, which he was careful to point out was not my fault (something The Computer Nazi would never have done and, as a matter of fact, would have gone out of his way to find something that was my fault so he could produce a snotty sneer worthy of Draco in Harry Potter). He said that it may have been caused by something to do with a USB device, or something ...whatever... it wasn't my fault, which was all I wanted to hear, and now I will be a loyal customer of his forever.
There must be a moral to this story. We'll say it's to make sure you back up your files, or something along those lines. Or just keep a myriad of computers in your office so no matter what happens, you can always transcribe. Always. And forever.
(And, yes, my two weeks off was wonderful. I hope to do it again some day.)
Saturday, June 6, 2009
It's time...
I've been so busy this past week, the time has flown by.
This past week I've had an unusually heavy work load and didn't have time to think about anything else but work, and here it is Saturday, the weekend already, and I hardly noticed it arrive. Usually I can't wait for the weekend. It's nice to have it pop up unexpectedly for once.
There is a stack of newspapers on the kitchen counter that I haven't had time to read, and this morning I look out the window and see that the foxgloves have bloomed and the ferns have gotten tall, all without my having had time to notice. Which brings me to the point of this post. You knew I'd have a point, didn't you?
My point is it's time for a vacation. Yes, I'm taking two weeks off work, at least the transcription part of it. I'll still be doing QA at night. But, think of it, two whole weeks of nothing to do during the day but watch things bloom and grow and read the paper. Everything has been arranged, another transcriptionist will be covering for me, listening to my dear doctors' mutterings and whisperings. I've given her some samples so she knows what they all mean to say.
I may not even blog for those two weeks, so if you don't hear from me, I'll be outside listening to the wind in the trees.
This past week I've had an unusually heavy work load and didn't have time to think about anything else but work, and here it is Saturday, the weekend already, and I hardly noticed it arrive. Usually I can't wait for the weekend. It's nice to have it pop up unexpectedly for once.
There is a stack of newspapers on the kitchen counter that I haven't had time to read, and this morning I look out the window and see that the foxgloves have bloomed and the ferns have gotten tall, all without my having had time to notice. Which brings me to the point of this post. You knew I'd have a point, didn't you?
My point is it's time for a vacation. Yes, I'm taking two weeks off work, at least the transcription part of it. I'll still be doing QA at night. But, think of it, two whole weeks of nothing to do during the day but watch things bloom and grow and read the paper. Everything has been arranged, another transcriptionist will be covering for me, listening to my dear doctors' mutterings and whisperings. I've given her some samples so she knows what they all mean to say.
I may not even blog for those two weeks, so if you don't hear from me, I'll be outside listening to the wind in the trees.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Dr. Curmudgeon
Dr. Curmudgeon has retired, gone golfin', fishin', whatever he did to occupy himself when not amusing the transcriptionists with his outrageous dictations.
He was notorious for dictating in ways that were unpredictable, off the wall, sometimes inappropriate, always politically incorrect. I called him Dr. Curmudgeon because he was a grouchy but lovable older gentleman who sometimes cracked me up. One time he quoted Lemony Snicket, saying the patient would have to add the force of gravity to his list of enemies. I could picture him reading A Series of Unfortunate Events to his grandkids with a cigar in his mouth, a Seahawks game in the background, and a glass of Jack Daniels in hand.
He signed off his last dictation to me with a nice thank you, followed by a discreet belch.
I miss him already.
He was notorious for dictating in ways that were unpredictable, off the wall, sometimes inappropriate, always politically incorrect. I called him Dr. Curmudgeon because he was a grouchy but lovable older gentleman who sometimes cracked me up. One time he quoted Lemony Snicket, saying the patient would have to add the force of gravity to his list of enemies. I could picture him reading A Series of Unfortunate Events to his grandkids with a cigar in his mouth, a Seahawks game in the background, and a glass of Jack Daniels in hand.
He signed off his last dictation to me with a nice thank you, followed by a discreet belch.
I miss him already.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day 2009
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
~ Abraham Lincoln
~ Abraham Lincoln
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Superduper speech wreck bloopers
Dictated: This is Dr. _____ dictating a progress note on patient name ______, date _____.
Speech recognition transcribed: Nipride. The patient. I am shampoo unchanged, crying on insurance date in June.
Dictated: Clinical indication: Altered level of awareness.
Speech recognition transcribed: Clinical indication: Altered level of where it is.
Dictated: obesity
SR transcribed: OBCD
Dictated: date of birth
SR transcribed: eating a birth
Dictated: Patient was transferred to continuing care center.
SR transcribed: Patient was transferred to canine care center.
Dictated: This dictation is on patient name _____, spelled _____.
SR transcribed: This dictation is on our mind with an A and a C and an E over there.
(speech recognition bloopers sent to me by friends or found on the web)
Speech recognition transcribed: Nipride. The patient. I am shampoo unchanged, crying on insurance date in June.
Dictated: Clinical indication: Altered level of awareness.
Speech recognition transcribed: Clinical indication: Altered level of where it is.
Dictated: obesity
SR transcribed: OBCD
Dictated: date of birth
SR transcribed: eating a birth
Dictated: Patient was transferred to continuing care center.
SR transcribed: Patient was transferred to canine care center.
Dictated: This dictation is on patient name _____, spelled _____.
SR transcribed: This dictation is on our mind with an A and a C and an E over there.
(speech recognition bloopers sent to me by friends or found on the web)
