Don't you love when your entire world hangs in the balance of technology?

So here I am, sitting here fuming at my computer because it decided to go stupid. Here's what happened:

Three weeks ago, give or take, both of my computers crashed, including my personal and the one provided by the company I no longer work for, but got bought out by another company and told us we could keep the computers if/when our relationship with the company ended.

Yep, they both died, and both on the same day. Wonder what the message is supposed to be in that one. Well, anyway, so I get on the phone and spend hours trying to a find a rent-to-own place (because on what I make, there is no way I can pay my bills and by a new computer outright right now) trying to find a computer that actually still runs XP (since almost no transcription platforms that I have seen will work with Vista, and the ones that do will only work with the 32-bit, which no one sells anymore, and just so you know, none of them seem to work with Windows 7 yet, either). I finally find one, and off I go to give them my hard-earned cash and acquire my new PC.

The delivery of said PC was a rather, ahem, interesting arrangement. The guys delivering thought they were trading out a tower, when in fact, I did not already have a computer from this company. Then, they inform me that my old monitor will not work with this computer, because it uses a different type of connector, and I will just have to wait for them to get back out with the monitor. Keep in mind, I have spent almost a week NOT WORKING already.

But they finally get things delivered and set up, and then I wait two days for the company I work for to get in and re-install their software. Then, I spend three days with tech support, a different one each day, trying to get the installation fixed because they did not do things correctly the first time!!! Arrgh!

Anyway, we get that fixed and finally I am back to work and everything is just peachy. Now, three weeks later, something has decided to just go and delete the executable file for my VPN, making it impossible to work for them at all. Five hours on the phone with tech support, and the conclusion is I will need to restore the computer to factory settings to be able to work on it at all. Remember me saying it was from a rent-to-own? So I can't restore to factory myself, but have to bring it in to them, and they can't do it until FRIDAY!!!!


For those of you who don't know, a VPN is a "Virtual Private Network." It is a secure connection to the facility whose dictation I transcribe, and makes it so that the work goes directly into their system instead of staying on mine and risking HIPAA violations.

So here I am, back where I started, and trying not to want to throw the shiny, $3000 Dell through my bedroom window!

Gotta love life in a moment like this, don't you!

You're a what???? Part 2

There is a lot more to it sometimes than just typing what the doctor says. You actually have to understand what they are talking about, too. Sometimes a doctor will say the wrong word, and you need to be able to realize that there was an error made. For example, a doctor may say something like "The patient has a history of hyperglycemia, and fingerstick blood sugar today was 50."

Okay, so for those of you who do not know, hyperglycemia would mean high blood sugar. Hypoglycemia would be low blood sugar. And also, for those of you who may not know, 50 is a LOW blood sugar. So even though the doctor may have said hyperglycemia, you would have to know to type hypOglycemia.

See, it is not as easy as you thought, is it.


Part three to come tomorrow!

You're a what???? Part 1

Medical transcriptionist. It does not seem like a lot of people even know what this is. Medical transcription is a widely misunderstood field. I have gotten "Oh, so you are a secretary?" No, not even close. I am a Health Information Professional. Gotta love how everything has gotten so PC, right??

For those of you who are wondering, think about it this way. You know how, when you go to the doctor, s/he scribbles all kinds of things into that folder they call your chart? Well, after you leave, the doctor reads all that stuff off of the scribble-chart, either into a microcassette, or a telephone system, or a digital recorder. Then, they do that for every other patient they see that day. And then, that information is sent to a medical transcriptionist, who has to take all of the babbling, burping, chewing, and other wonderful sounds they slip in there while they are dictating (that is what "reading" all that stuff is called) and turn it into a legible, complete medical record. This is a legal document, so there is very little room for error.

Part two to come later.