Saturday, May 11, 2024

A new career option--Medical Terminology.

 It is a tough decision to make regarding career change in this economic scenario at present. Many are there who opt to switch career getting impatient at a particular trend. This results in a shortage of skilled workers which are a matter of concerned for employers in particular fields. There are other factors such as corporate cost cutting, off shoring, layoffs and forced career switching that makes worker choices difficult. 

The trend of a fixed secure job with one employer throughout life seems to be over. A particular career path nowadays involves many turnovers, feedbacks, uncertainties etc. It is really hard to choose and follow a particular career path that brings satisfaction , stability and offers growth potential as well as enrichment. 


Some good opportunities to reduce uncertainty and enhance marketability quotient is to improve one's set of various skills. Some good education is needed to maintain licenses and get some certificates which boosts up one's biodata. Make those education effective and do the right training so that those can create more opportunities in the particular field and try adding feathers in the career cap. 


Now, the question is which industries offer maximum jobs stability and growth opportunities? 


Trends show that healthcare and related industries are hiring skilled workers in the last decade. Forbes magazine indicates that baby boomers looking towards healthcare in dusty between 2004 and 2014, 70% of the jobs in US will probably be in the health Care industry. Additionally career related to patient care will increase. There are demands for professionals keeping medical records, health information technicians, counselors, therapists as well as medical transcriptionists


Medical terminology involves some basic requirements for one entering into any health care related career. It needs skill to understand, pronounce, recognise and spell the basic medical terms, identify medical abbreviations, keywords as well as deciphering unfamiliar words using roots, suffixes and prefixes. Medical terminology courses are offered online, based on home study and instructed-led-formats . As medical technology is rapidly making advances interindustry they are for medical terminology is also gaining important to cope up with it. Even if medical record and health information technicians one has done courses on medical terminology in the past, to stay updated and forward one should again take up courses unit. 


Here is a list of 7 non traditional careers as provided by the department of labor database, which requires medical terminology.


1. Medical record and health information technicians-- General education is the basic requirement for this along with certain course work requirements for medical records for health information technicians. This includes courses on medical terminology, anatomy physiology, legal aspects of health information, coding and abstraction of data, statistics, database management, quality improvement methods and some basic knowledge on computer science.


2. Medical transcriptionists-- Medical transcriptionist should be able to understand accurately the dictated reports, should be able to understand the medical terms, anatomy, physiology, diagnostic procedures, pharmacology and treatment details. They must also know how to translate medical jargon and abbreviations into expanded forms. 


3. Surgery technologists -- Many communities, junior colleges, vocational schools, Universities, hospitals and military boards offer surgical training as formal program courses. In 2006 the has offered around 400 such programs, ranging between (9-24) month courses, providing certificates, diploma or some degrees. Such programs involved classroom education and supervise clinical experiments with results. Courses are offered on various subjects such as anatomy, physiology, microbiology, pharmacology, professional ethics and medical terminology. 

Several other topic son which training is provided include the care and safety of patients while surgery, sterile techniques and surgical procedures. Training is also provided to students to sterilize instruments and to handle special drugs, solutions, supplies and equipment although mostly recruiters like to hire certified technologists. 


4. Occupational therapist Aides and assistances-- Around 130 accredited occupational therapist assistant programs where available in 2007. Courses for first year includes healthcare, basic medical terminology, anatomy and physiology. Second year courses include occupational therapy, mental health related courses on adult physical disabilities, gerontology and coursesonpediatrics. Students must acquire a 16 week of supervised field training in a clinic or community setting. 


5. Medical assistants-- Post secondary vocational institutions such as schools and junior colleges include certain medical assisting programs such as some one or two year diploma or certificate courses or maybe some degree courses. Courses include anatomy, physiology, medical terminology apart from typing, transcription, record keeping, accounting and insurance processing. Laboratory techniques, clinical and diagnostic procedures, pharmaceutical principles, the administration of medications, first aid training are imparted to students. They also learn office practices, patient relations, medical law and ethics. New models organization impart medical assistance programs and accredited programs with internships to gain practical knowledge in dispensaries, hospitals and other healthcare offices. 


6. Radiologic technology and technicians-- A committee known as the joint review committee on education in radiologic technology imparts formal training on this trend. It has a creditedaround600-700 radiography programs in 2007 that includes both classroom as well as laboratory instructions in anatomy, physiology, patient care techniques, imaging principles, medical terminology , patient positioning, medical ethics, radiobiology and pathology. 


7. Court Reporting -- Court reporting certification (CVR) candidates need to qualify a written spelling, punctuation , vocabulary, legal and medical terminology tests along with 3-5 minute dictation & transcription examinations for testing their speed, skill and accuracy A part from the above fields, if the individual understands medical terminology it will bean extra advantage. Lawyers, paralegals, legal secretaries and other legal professional handling cases include medical related problems which may be solved smoothly having a good knowledge on medical terminology


Medical terminology is an advantage for health insurance professionals and also for those working in medical billing and coding sectors. Most firms require certification in medical terminology for pharmacy professionals. Medical terminology is required by specialists and technicians of biology, dentistry, hospital administration and many others to talk to staffs , customers, co-workers and patients. Professional such as counselor, technicians & home-health care providers such as there pasts etc. can improve communication and patient-care services by reducing oversights and liability issues with a good knowledge of medical terminology


Medical terminology courses are immensely helpful to enhance one's skill set thereby uplifting the market value regarding career. It not only will create good career opportunities but will also increase accessibility in the healthcare industry. Thus, making good use of time and education will bring out fruitful employment chances that will make life smoother.

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Nursing--An essential part of the healthcare community.

 A person who is a nurse has dedicated his or her life in the profession of nursing patients. Nurses can be both men and women who provides treatment, hospitality and recovery of acute or chronicle ailments, injury or health maintenance services and treats risk for life emergency situations over a wide range of health care variations. Nurses also take active part in medical and nursing research and also does non clinical duties relevant to the services of healthcare.


Nurses settle over a plan, at times often having discussions with doctors, therapists, the patient, patients family and other team members. In UK and USA, more trained nurses like nursing specialists as well as practitioners, assess health problems and hence provides medications and other therapies too. They also help hand in hand with other healthcare members such as therapists ,physicians, dietitians ,nurses etc to provide care to patients. Nurses also works independently as professionals.


As per the Labor Department of US revised occupational outlook handbook (2000), the duty of registered nurses (RNs) Is to prevent disease, promote good health and help patients fight with diseases. They advise and guide patients, families and society. During patient treatments, they observe, assess response and progress to help doctors during their treatments, list medications and health the convalescence and rehabilitations .The duties of RN’s involve developing ideas to manage nursing care plans, to take good care of patients and advice patients and their families to follow their instructions to maintain good health.


 Nursing career may be diverse in many ways. Nursing career may include different levels of nursing across different countries of the world. Different nursing levels vary depending upon education levels, responsibility and competition. 2 levels of nursing are task based nursing and nursing as a profession. pause Nurses may be high school graduates with one to 1 and a 1/2 year of training in east Europe while in countries like Chile, a person must hold a bachelor's degree to become a registered nurse.


 The most important nursing is that of a nurse with an educational doctorate degree. There may even be a doctorate degree such as doctor of science nursing (DNSC) Or doctor of nursing practice for nurses that emphasises in research, clinical nurses, task based nursing ,Nursing practice, nursing teach and conduct research in nursing. As science has advanced, so the art of nursing as well as the need for doctoral prepared nurses.


How do registered nurses get ready with basic preparations? Three such ways are discussed below.

• Graduation of an associate of science in nursing degree that is all two to three-year course at university level that specializes on clinical knowledge and skills to get a degree of ASN or ASA or both.

• Three-year of diploma in nursing which is a graduation course from a hospital at the base of a non degree nursing school. Few of such programs are prevalent in us and diploma in nursing is decreasing at a high rate.

• Graduation from university with bachelor’s degree in nursing That may be a four to five year course giving up BSN or BN degree that emphasizes on clinical nursing courses as well as research.


Apart from the above 3 ways some other special programs are available which are meant for LPN or RN for those who do not hold graduate degrees in other subjects and for military paramedics or doctors. So, Any graduate may be entitled to take up entry level nursing courses, getting a license. 


Generally an entry level course includes topics such as

• Anatomy and Physiology

• Psychology

• Microbiology

• Pharmacology and Drug Administration

• Nursing theory and nursing ethics

• The practice of nursing 

• Legal issues in nursing practice.


Any of these above streams requires that the candidates obtains a training in clinical nursing. Student nurses provides care to patients under academic supervision in hospitals. Clinical courses are as under: 


• Maternal child nursing

• Pediatric nursing

• Adult medical surgical nursing

• Geriatric nursing

• Psychiatric nursing.


Trainee nurses the clinical training are provided special dresses to differentiate them from professional nurses. In the US,During nursing training, an online exam is conducted before while taking the training and at the end of it to judge the nursing students capabilities. This will help to figure out the skills as well as shortcomings and will demonstrate the requirement for rehabilitation prior to taking the board exam. Although it is not mandatory for all US based nursing programs yet this practice has gained importance over time.


Most errands take up additional education such as getting a master degree in science and nursing or a PH D to get a leadership to prepare for or be in practice regarding advanced features in the Infirmary. Most teaching positions require nurses to have an advanced nursing degree. Even some hospitals arrange for extra nursing classes to assist nurses who want to obtain extra degree beyond basic nursing education.


Even some professional organization provides voluntary certification to nurses to obtain advanced knowledge and skills in their specialization fields. Other country nurses need to be proficient in English as well as have good academic qualification to get admission to the council of graduates of foreign nursing schools prior to get permission of allowance for the US licensing examination.


 The nursing profession is regulated and monitored by the government to give protection to public. The US have complete control over nursing practice which is again guarded by legal rules and regulations that are rendered by the state nursing boards Several states have adhered to the new model of nursing practice and the Model Law nursing administrative rules laid down by the National Council of state nursing board (NCSNB).Many state boards too possess it’s model license needs in uniform hold licensing requirements providing skills development and lean down principles of competency assessments.


 Nurses obtain license in several states by appearing in examinations or approval of a license issued by different state. The states too Agree with the knots licensing compact thereby giving permission to the nurses to practice in different states of which all are mutually acceptable licenses.

The future of Medical transcription--it's scope.

 Let us find out the duty of a Medical transcriptionist by looking at professional associations. We also look forward to see towards how medical transcriptionists view their professions, scope and future.


Risk factor in traditional transcription.


The first risk in this section is speech recognition technology which is about 48%. A survey  was taken on Medical transcription and it was found out that risk was 31% on electronic health record , 32.5% on the use of scribes to develop the health care documentation and 27% on others. According to others, the other category also includes acceptance of low quality of documentation and use of speech recognition files as the final documentation. Some people's view is that offshore transcription carries maximum risk with some thinking that it creates low waged for medical transcriptionists. Again some thinks  that MT's lack recognition of their work. Yet another view is that some MT's leave the profession since the depth of knowledge required in the jobs are too highest  as compared to the low wages they receive.


A very interesting fact is that about 50% thinks , it is a great risk as far as speech recognition is concerned in transcription while another 50% of the respondents do not prefer to use this technology. It is a threat to the fact that may be loss of income if one uses this technology. Some  thinks the electronic record and the scribe as one and the same issue. It is not since a lot of practices enter into a cheque box system that does not use scribe although they are closely connected.


Some even consider MT's  leaving the profession being in capable to provide training to fresh graduates, but let us  try to find out why this happens?


Can one thing of an alternative career as a way  out? 


While others may have such an idea about 54% say that they do not seek for an alternative way out. 47% just does that and 12 to 13% see that they are seeking for a career option outside the health Care industry. What they seek for are  like coding, healthcare informatics, information technology etc. The seeking's outside of healthcare industry are like dance instruction, accounting psychology and herbal consulting. From the survey, it was found that some doubt it that their chances are getting reduced regarding ability to work from house in the forth coming days.


It is a correlation of the above facts. Since a high percentage searches for other options apart from medical transcription and with 12 to 13% seeking for options outside the health Care industry, it clearly the depicts how secure one feels about medical transcription. Again if we have a look on the other side, a maximum number of people do not look out for anything else. But some people really opt out for things if not medical transcription. For eg. taking dance classes throughout the day might be enjoying for some. Some people may love to work in Excel while others may find it a boarding task to do accounting throughout the day. To some people, psychology may be a fascination while others may find it difficult to listen to each others problems throughout the day and be a  counselor. Some may even like to do herbal consulting. The fact is that all those people may love to take up any of those as a career option yet they find it engrossing to watch out what MT' s are actually eager to do.


The actual scenario


A lot of things were covered throughout the survey and here is a summary of the different topics. 

Since around 50% people have a 4 years of experience or more in this profession, not a good number of people would enter into this profession freshly.


The main working area of MT's are not clinic or hospitals but rather the work for medical transcription services to be provided from specific work areas. The actual function of medical transcriptionist are to work on speech recognition editing as reported by 30%. MT' s have other tasks too such as quality assurance, recruiting and management. 


Nowadays, speech recognition has gained importance although around 51.5% of MT's do not use this technology.

MT's work on different jobs throughout the week or spend at least 40 hours on the same job. It is really of a concern for maintaining good health or a balance in life.


About the credentials, around 65% of medical transcriptionists have no credentials. In spite of this fact about 49% or working in situations where they cannot enjoy the benefits. Again, it has been found out that around 16% are working on good pay rates having a credential.


For most of the people, as the survey shows, the income range has remained stagnant (. (28.5%) or for some it has deteriorated (39%) in the last few years.


The maximum people do not belong to any professional organization ( about 57.5%) . According to the survey respondents, they may work for AHDI (around 41%) which is not at all a number that translates to majority MT's. 


Most MT's are attached to organizations to obtain a net worth and continue their education apart from working to strengthen their profession as well.


Thus, it has been found out that according to the different options in the professional areas of MT's , there are several reasons as why one stage with the organization or leaves. In such scenario, some felt that staying with organizations has not been any advantage to the MT's while others think that MT needs are not looked after at all.


So, what the group of individual urges for, from a professional organisation is quite natural. An advocate with employers where one maybe able to continue further studies their by increasing scope and trying for new options with low wages, information and technology trainings with networking scopes. They will also like to work with technology vendors since it is vital as technology gets on changing in this field often.

Some areas of concern in this profession are nothing but speech recognition and scribe based electronic record keeping.


Thus many of the MT's searching and opting out for a different career scope.

What is the way out? 

One must take a decision wisely. Medical transcriptionists possess great wisdom to find out alternatives. So, it is for us to hear from them what they are really thinking forward to since the technology is changing very fast.

To be famous with a career in nursing.

 It is really possible to be popular at the same time of being a nurse. If we think of Florence Nightingale, Was the daughter of a rich landowner, who did not wish to marry and lead a comfortable life but instead thought to become a nurse at 25 years of age. Her family did not want her to become a nurse and be linked up with women of working class and so they opposed her decision. in spite of all these she succeeded to fulfill her wish.


If you search out for some famous nurses you may end up finding out the name of another famous nurse, Mary Seacole  and other nurses who are male such as St. tupa de levis and Ujjwal Dirham .Thus Being a nurse and at the same time getting popular is really like a competition.


     For some, nursing is a vocation. For some, It is irrational choice of commitment to serve patience, maybe choice of ideology.  Again for some it is just a profession to earn a good salary.


     If we see Nightingale, she used to treat wounded soldiers from both sides of the war while the conflict went on. After that she went back to England getting quite renowned and laughed and started a program to train nurses serving military hospitals.


    Those nurses involved in surgery or provide intensive care to patients have more technical work to do. A huge group of nurses mainly belong to that group who deal with clients and patients.


     To deal with ‘patients’, as the word suggests need great practice which nurses must possess. Many businesses in the medical stream as well as hospitals looks forward to find out people with patience which is extremely needed in these fields although they get low pay at times.


The duty of nurses is to complete the curing procedure for the patient’s recovery once the medical specialist has started the main treatment.


      Nowadays new advancements related to the nursing procedure is gaining popularity with the tasks of a nurse practitioner.  However the rule of narcissists are more general quite contrary to the specific role of medical specialists.


Let us find out why nurses cannot give so popular.  People memorizes that a person who did their first open heart surgery in S Africa although they will not remember the name of the nurse who assisted the person. This has been found in every scenario since nurses are not considered as heroes in their jobs and got no importance even if they render great special care to patients.


 Job details for registered nurses


 The job profiles of registered nurses must show skills and qualities that are beyond average according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. For someone who is still deciding on the fact as which career to choose, nursing might be a good option but at the same time it is important to check out the job details of registered nurses prior to taking a stand to choose this career.


Job summary of registered nurses must contain information regarding education and training needed, the type of work to do and the idea of an expected pay amount. The complete summary or information is available on several websites will give a detailed account of an RN’s job along with the requirement set by the Bureau of Labor statistics and the pay scale website.


For an  individual to  become registered nurse a diploma courses needs to be completed along with an associate degree in nursing or Bach. of Science in nursing that will train the individual to appear for the licensing exam and to pass it with ease.


 Those who are BSN graduates enjoy greater opportunities and hence narcissists with lower degrees generally take up courses and trainings to fulfill their BSN degree or master degree in science of nursing


Registered nurses take up training programs including classroom tasks and clinical components. job description of nurses involves numerous types of tasks based on a particular status the nurse wishes to hold.


 Nurses excels in various areas and managed to work in environments such as hospitals, doctors clinic, schools and nursing homes. At times they work personally at patients homes too.


Other duties of RN’s Include delivering special care to patients as well as the evaluation of patients health and development plans for nursing care. Nurses keep records, at times gives advice to patients related to care and how to take preventive measures for some diseases.


      The monthly salary of nurses are dependent upon their qualifications, work experience along with certain specializations in the trend if they have any. The salary of nurses may range from $50,000 to $1,00,000. It was about $60,000 for RN’s.


What are the things needed to become a registered nurse?


 Registered nurses play an important part in building up healthy lifestyles in a community. The impaired good knowledge to individuals and families along with patients and communities. So, if one aims at becoming a registered nurse one must plan accordingly, assess and put up special patient care and coordination in the process.


Registered nurses works with people in hospitals, home healthcare areas, clinics, outpatient care centers, temporary health and government agencies along with schools and nursing homes too. Thus, The job of a history nurse needs good skills, experience as well as education. Registered nurses job also demands patience and dedication in the task along with a Bachelor of Science nursing degree from a renowned institution.


      Models educational programs and courses are available for the individuals wishing to become registered nurses.  numerous career choices are available whereby narcissists may gather experience. Main degree program of Narcissus include hospital diploma courses, associate degree in nursing, Bachelor of Science in nursing etc., Physiology, Anatomy, behavioral science and nutrition are some of the other related courses attached with Nursing.


The above degrees and courses are available in colleges, hospitals or universities.  depending upon state policies a license may be required to become a registered nurse. This license is available after the end of courses undertaken. Sometimes a masters degree is essential to be a registered midwife, certified nurse or medical practitioner.