Bones, yay!

Based on the breakdown of hours in the CS grade book, I'm around 10% done with the course, haha. Long way to go, still.

In the midst of bones and ligaments and I love it! I would love to work in an orthopedic specialty... I would love it! I was hoping to make it to today's moderated chat, but ended up spending a bunch of time at the DMV with J trying to get my car FINALLY placed in my name. It's all good now, but that took longer than I thought and I missed the chat! Last week's moderated chat was only just posted in the logged chats, hopefully this one will be posted on time.

Just a quick update, taking a break from those bones!

Moving on!

I finished up grammar, but definitely plan on returning and working towards better scores. I'm moving on to Anatomy and Physiology and I can't wait! I haven't even looked at it yet, but I'm excited to move on to more ACTUAL learning. I'll have no problem with the bones, that was (is) my favorite part of anthropology.

At this point I can see this path stretched out in front of me and it's... a pretty long path. I know it will only seem longer when I reach reports. I'm getting so antsy! I want to be doing it for real now! I don't know, maybe it's my age; it seems I'm fairly young compared to others on the forums. Some of the lovelies there are closer to my age but have kids as well. I still feel like a kid myself sometimes! I just need to try and settle myself down and make sure I learn everything as well as I can.

Grammar nightmare!

As I finished up Medical Word Building, I shocked myself with a 100% test score on my first attempt! That was fantastic! However, I now find myself muddling through Grammar and Style Essentials. You see, I feel like I have a decent grasp of sentence formation. Granted, I can sometimes get a bit lazy, but in the necessary situations I can pull it together. And now, I am incredibly bored with trying to relearn the technical bits of sentence structure. My brain is just not interested! I know I need to get it together and make sure I can retain everything here, so my plan is this: I'm just going to work my way through the first part of it (I'm assuming that later on, it will be more MT specific?), not worry if I don't get the best score initially and continuously return to this unit as I work through the rest of unit and keep on it that way. Trudge along, I will...

I haven't worked on any of the program in the past two days, which makes me very sad. Between trying to find a job for J and I both, possibly having to move and the major fund raiser we just held at our house to fund his band's CD there was absolutely no time!

Word Building...

...is going swimmingly. It almost feels like I'm moving through it too fast, like I should be taking more time. However, I'm fairly confident in my understanding and spelling and want to keep moving forward! I am grateful for the flash cards CS included with the materials, they've helped me to feel very confident in my learning AND I get to impress J with all the big words I know when I have him quiz me.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get a feel for what I want in a word list. I started with just a table in MS Word, but I really hate inserting new cells when needed (even with the keystrokes, I'm too impatient) and I hate the search function. So I downloaded Lil Red Notebook, which is fine, but I'd like to have definitions and notes on top of just the word, which LRN doesn't help with. Same with SlimList. I just downloaded PinderSoft's Pegasus CardFile, which is essentially a very simple rolodex situation, which is all I wanted. I'm test-driving it for a while, we'll see how it goes. Worth $20? We'll see. I'm also just a smidgen sad that I didn't upgrade to the Dorland Electronic Dictionary, as the online access is SLOW to retrieve words and definitions (again, impatience) but I think I'll be fine.

!!

Ok, so after the ridiculousness of the foot pedal incident, I got everything set up and decided to try some dictation... and it wasn't horrible! Yes, I have a long way to go, but at this point, so early in the course, I'm seeing what my supervisor meant, I think I have the potential to do very well with this!

The point of this post was just a little woohoo! for me!

Always with the problems!

I was approved for the CS forums and chats yesterday and have spent some time roaming the forums and already I'm incredibly grateful for that resource. Everyone is very helpful and it's good to know I'm not the only one going through these feelings of inadequacy and other insecure thoughts.

Not two weeks into the program, and I've already screwed up. Last night as I was falling asleep, it occurred to me that I may have accidentally thrown out the install disc for my foot pedal. A preliminary search this morning through my "desk" area (the left side of the living room couch with corresponding coffee table space) confirms this. I tried just plugging it in and installing Express Scribe, and it reads the pedal just fine, rewinds and fast-forwards just fine but has issues with straight-forward playback and pausing. No good, right? I emailed CS to find out what I need to do next. Honestly, I was too nervous to ask on the forums just yet, I'd hate for my first question there to be one that is so ridiculous.

Also, last night I started my word list, just in a table in Word. I immediately was hoping for a better way of going about it, and found out about Li'l Red Notebook. So I promptly downloaded the trial and installed... and so far, it isn't working. It won't even let me uninstall it! I'll keep fiddling with it, hopefully something can be done there. Very, very silly of me. I went to the Horus website, and lo' and behold! Special directions for use with Vista! How funny! So the problem is all fixed, I can play with it a bit and see if it's right for me!

ETA: Extreme facepalm... apparently there is no install disc for the foot pedal. All the issues I had with it are covered in the link the very nice CS counselor gave me. Ugh, I am utterly ridiculous.

A first post...

Two weeks ago, I enrolled with Career Step, LLC and I am officially en route to becoming a medical transcriptionist. I officially started my training on May 1st. I thought it may be interesting to blog about this whole experience, to vent and share my journey both for my own benefit and possibly for the benefit of others considering or going through the program.

First off, a little background. I am a 22-year-old female who spends probably too much time with her computer. I recently moved out of my mom's house and into a house with my boyfriend (fiance) that is 150 miles away from home. I live with 3 additional roommates, all male, and our two lovely cats. Ultimately, my goals at this time will be to continue the pursuit of a Bachelor of Art or Sciences (possibly in the arts or anthropology) and I hope for medical transcription to be a means to that end. I need a way to make rent and pay bills and be sane, which in this job market is not easy. I currently work at a department store five hours weekly (I know, right?) and I just started working the door at a local club/bar/venue once a week. Obviously, I need something a little more substantial until the time when I can make medical transcription an income.

I found out about the industry working as an office/pharmacy assistant back home. A friend who ran another office mentioned how in demand medical coders were and all that and that planted a seed. I bounced the idea off of my supervisor, who knows me much better than the friend, and recommended that instead I look into transcription. Looking back, I agree with her reasoning; while I know that the medical coding industry is just that much more in need right now, my personality is more geared towards the transcription aspect of things. A little bit more interactive, I suppose. My search led me to Career Step.

I think that's all for now. As far as the course goes, I'm chugging along through medical word building. Prefixes and suffixes were easy enough, root words are taking a little bit more work, but not bad. I previewed the audio files and they are incredibly daunting, I kind of panicked a little. However, the threads at the forums regarding just that (the panic of clinical!) have reassured me that I'm not alone.

I started this account to be my primary outlet for all things MT related. I have a livejournal for the nonspecific, everyday life blogging.

Here's to a new beginning!