Happy Mother's Day!

Today is Mother's Day, and that made me start thinking about all of the information I have read, such as posts and articles on the internet that are written by women who began a career in medical transcription so that they could stay home with their children.

Actually, I first heard about medical transcription from one such woman when I was a child. Her name was Melissa Grigg. She was a wonderful, creative, highly intelligent and devoted mother, mentor, and medical transcriptionist. Melissa Grigg was my aunt, but she was more like a second mother to me. The discussions we shared about medical transcription and the medical field helped to shape my interest in pursuing this career myself.

Medical transcription is not an easy career, and neither is motherhood. However, they are two of the most rewarding decisions a woman can make in life. Happy Mother's Day to all of the women out there making the difference as medical transcriptionists and mothers!

Food for Thought

Children emulate what they observe their parents doing. Parents can set a good example for their children by making healthier food selections. One place to start is by speaking with a dietician at your local hospital. He or she can help to create a healthy diet plan for the individual needs of your family. There is also a wealth of information and tips at: http://mypyramid.gov/. Also worth noting is the "MyPyramid for Kids" section of the site. It includes a PDF explaining the key concepts behind it in addition to educational activities for children and tips for families about nutrition and exercise.

Obesity is a growing topic in the news as more research is uncovering health issues related to obesity. Education about nutrition and exercise might help to alleviate this health issue. If children observe their parents establishing healthy eating practices, they too will begin to eat better foods. This, in turn, would produce another generation of more health-conscious individuals as the cycle of healthy eating habits was taught to the next generation of children.

May is National Stroke Awareness Month

Stroke, also known more recently as "brain attack," is a very serious issue in America. A stroke is caused by a blood clot that clogs an artery or blood vessel and disrupts the blood flow to part or parts of the brain. It is the third leading cause of death and the No. 1 cause of adult disability, according to the National Stroke Association.

http://www.stroke.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HOME

It is important to become educated about strokes because up to 80% of them are preventable, and if hospital treatment is received within 3 hours of having a stroke, some symptoms may be reversable.
I read a poster in a local hospital recently that coincides with information at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke. The poster was designed to give non-medically trained individuals some basic information that might help to recognize a stroke. Instructions were given in the information to have a suspected stroke victim follow a simple set of tasks that would be difficult for someone having a stroke to follow. Those instructions are:

• Ask the individual to smile.
• Ask the individual to raise both arms and keep them raised.
• Ask the individual to speak a simple sentence (coherently). For example, "It is sunny out today."

There is a great deal of information about strokes on both of these sites, as well as across the internet. Please take the time to read more about this topic. When it comes to strokes, time matters. The more time it takes a person to receive medical care, the less chance of brain restoration or survival there is for that individual.

What Do You See?

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."

-- Author unknown.

What do you see when you look at a medical report you have just transcribed? Does everything look accurate? Sometimes first appearances can be deceptive.

While I was completing my online Comprehensive Medical Transcription course from the University of Central Oklahoma, I learned a very useful trick for viewing what I had transcribed with a new pair of eyes. Listening to the dictation a second time while carefully proofreading makes errors in word usage stand out like red flags. I realize that the experienced MTs reading my posts will already know this. However, if you are still in training or new to the field, this trick might make a difference for you.

One of my professional goals is to help educate other MTs while I continue to learn more myself. I have found that no matter how much knowledge I have gained, there will always be far more to obtain. Experience is often one of the best teachers, so I hope to broaden my field of view by learning from the experiences of others as well.

Earning the Grade

There are several different choices available for medical transcription schools. Deciding on the right school might seem like a daunting task at first. However, with some careful research, hard work, and determination, you can be well on your way to earning a degree and working hard to become a successful medical transcriptionist.

Not only are there several different schools to choose from, but there are several different opinions about which school is the right one to choose. The internet is filled with advertisements and advice in regards to today's topic. Regardless, there are still some basic guidelines that might make the decision making process a little easier.

Some things to consider when looking for a medical transcription school are the course curriculum, requirements, and costs. Not all programs are created equally. However, it is important to have a good foundation in medical terminology, anatomy & physicology, and the human body in both health and illness. Also, a thorough training in actual practice of transcribing reports is useful to have. There is a difference in learning information from a text book and actually being able to apply that knowledge afterwards. With some careful research and thought, the right school can be found for medical transcription. It pays to do your homework and look before you leap.

A New Remedy for Baldness?

There was an interesting study done recently at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. There were articles published about the study in the journal Nature and for Reuters Healthdescribing how scientists discovered that mice with deep skin wounds can regrow hair. The dermatology professor who led the study, Dr. George Cotsareli, would like to see the idea of applying compounds to get epidermal cells to turn into hair follicles to become a precedent for future remedies for male-pattern baldness and similar causes for hair loss.

Dr. Cotsareli cautions that the time frame for seeing such ideas become marketable might not even begin for up to five more years as further research is done. Dr. Cheng-Ming debated that while the study might show that hair could grow from adult skin, the data was still inconclusive because human skin is different from that of the mice on which the experiments were performed. Dr. Cheng-Ming is a professor of pathology at the University of Southern California, though he was not actually involved in the study itself.

Both doctors felt that regenerative and repairative tissue were vitally important to this process of hair growth beginning at the locations of the wounds. It is still not decided whether or not the epidermal cells would turn into hair follicles in humans if the wounds were not allowed a comparative amount of time to heal as in the case of the mice.

Summer Safety Tips

With the onset of summer vacation, it is a good time to post some safety tips that might help keep you and your children safe as the summer fun begins this year!

• Practice common sense.
• Make clear safety rules for the whole family.
• Learn to swim and/or teach your children how to swim.
• Swim in familiar areas to reduce the risk of potential dangers.
• Set up a secure area for your pool.
• Be aware of where children are. Many lives are lost every year due to accidental drowning.
• Keep rescue equipment and emergency numbers near your pool.
• Wear life jackets.
• Follow all of the rules posted in the area where you and your family are swimming.

These are only a few safety tips. While there are no 100% guarantees that nothing will ever happen, following safety guidelines might prevent serious injury or death for you or for someone you love.

The American Red Cross has an extensive amount of information to educate parents and children about safety. Visit: