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low level, low income, low education, low coping skills.

Posted By: stats on 2005-08-03
In Reply to: Those are not facts. Those are your opinions. - living in your own reality?

birds of a feather flock together FOR THE MOST PART.  why don't rich people move to trailer parks?  the mentality.  why do low income people stay low income?  no education.  why no education?  no forward thinking as to why some people can make money and others don't.  sorry if you don't like it, but stats don't lie.  do a google search.  there are certain neighborhoods that have income levels, education levels, crime rates.  these low income housing units, trailer park, section 8, apartments that do not require credit checks have higher crime rates, lower education levels and lower incomes.  google will answer all your questions regarding stats.  why do you think some neighborhoods are more valuable than others?  where i live the same house could be in one neighborhood and be more valuable than a house sitting in another neighborhood that is zoned for trailer parks.  why is that?  go figure.


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The truth will set you free and the truth is more low level income people w/o education or proper
skills to keep up their home or train their children live in trailer homes and low income housing. If that sets you off, maybe you should not visit these threads or read the posts regarding others viewpoints on trailer parks. They have zoning laws against them in many communities because they draw undesirable people are not particularly pleasing to the community as a whole, bringing property values down. If you have issues with this, seek out the government in various communities and have them change the laws. Fact is fact and you cannot dispute these facts.
I'm sorry, but education level or type of dwelling has NOTHING to do with the caliber of a person

There are plenty of "educated" boneheads out there in the world.  There are plenty of "uneducated" people who live in houses nicer than mine!  Educated people live in trailers and work in bars, too.


The term "trailer trash" refers to people who don't care for their property.  They'd rather be brawling and getting drunk than putting any effort into picking up the trash that's littered all over their yard and house.


I know all my neighbors.  I can show you homes of "uneducated" people that are nicer than the homes of the "educated".  We have several immigrants on our block that have no high school or college education.  However, they are the nicest neighbors to have.  They care for their property.  They are kind and generous people.


The undesirables in the neighborhood have a lot of problems that have nothing to do with their education level or type of house.


I came from low level neighborhood. I know the effects low level people have on a child's
mind. I fought very hard to get out of there. If you think narrow-minded high-horse thinking people are the only ones who are making trailer park comments, YOU ARE DEAD WRONG. I know white trash people who live for the weekend to get drunk and party and make just enough to get by. I am educated in the "real world" and whether you like it or not, the "real world" doesn't want to be anywhere near a trailer park for real or imagined reasons and does ostracize trailer park people along with ghetto people and section 8 people. Crime, drugs, do come from low income housing. BTW, people are outraged at black-on-black ghetto crime. That does not happen in higher working class black neighborhoods. Same deal with white trash people. Low class white people get drunk fight and end up in jail. If you read the newspaper or watch it on TV over the weekend, you know what I am talking about. Crime, drugs, etc is rarely an ONGOING problem in upper class neighborhoods because most of these people have goals for the future. Lower class neighborhoods and low class people are what they are because that's what the people in the neighborhoods settle for.
Apology for the typos and grammar. P.S. There is no "cure" but ways of coping. (sm)

However, please understand that requires diligence in working within yourself and many cannot or will not and therefore continue in their addiction.  You need to consult medical data and psychology before claiming there is a cure, because I do believe if you have one there are many people who would give their left arm to know it.


Not sure, I have deductions for federal income tax, SS tax, Medicare tax, and state income tax. ???
nm
there's all kinds of *education* and education
.
people skills
I beg to differ. I agree with the OP - your post was rude and condescending. I see no evidence of people skills in anything you wrote or in the "tone" of your post.

Also, your reply had nothing to do with her post. She was sharing good news about a hiring phase going on right now. Too bad you are so miserable that you cannot even recognize when one human being is sharing good news with others.

From what I have seen and experienced with MTSOs in the last 2 years (28 years in this business), there are many owners, managers and supervisors with no clue about how to deal with their employees.

SO, maybe you are the one who needs to find another business.
Looking to upgrade skills, though sm

just for personal reasons, as I'm still working, etc.  I see Medword has a 9 specialty CD set for $269, and of course there is the SUM Advanced package but that's $840.  My goal is to be more employable by just broadening my skills as I've only been doing ER and clinic for years (going on 10); however, I'm certainly not made of money!  ;)  Do you think the Medword one would be okay or a waste of money?  I've heard great things about the SUM program but do you think it's really necessary?


Thanks for your thoughts!


I hope your MT skills



This is where your skills really come into play.
It will drive you mad if you let it.  Sometimes even the doctor is unfamiliar with the med especially specialists.  I have found that on an occasional basis. 
$$ should have nothing to do with your skills and conscientiousness. (sm)
you sound like one of the ones who is relatively new to the field (within the last 10 years) who pumps out reports, doesn't spell correctly, and doesn't like being corrected.  Am I right?
Gap in spelling skills, too.
I have noted that misspelled words are everywhere; spelling skills are apparently no longer valued (and I'm talking people with advanced degrees with atrocious spelling and grammar).  I need to go to the dentist and get some teeth fixed from clenching my jaws so tightly whenever a doctor says things like "he itched himself".
not too sure of skills, need advice

Just wondering if any of you have experienced a lot of "knocks" starting out in transcription.  I took an at-home course in 98 and finally got hired in 2000 and trained in office for 8 months.  I worked at home for about 3 months then my husband divorced me.  I continued to work in the medical field for the next 4 years, doing work in a hospital that included med term and typing with 98% accuracy or actual transcription.  My problem is when I find a job my feedback is that I am leaving little words out, or not paying close enought attention to detail.  What can I do to improve this?  the only thing I can think of is just keep practicing but I can't keep an actual transcripton job long enough!  What do I do? 


Looking to strengthen skills...
I have been in the field for 7 years with the same account (IM and Family Practice.)  Looking to strengthen my skills.  The areas I feel I need improvement in are grammer, proofing (something I have done very little of), and a stronger understanding of terminology.  If you have any advice on where to go from here.  I do not need a full transcription course, but does anyone offer a "refresher" and/or practice dictation in different specialties.  Thanks so much!!   
What if you were an LPN with not so hot typing skills?
Would that duty still be required of you?  Sounds like you are not that busy as an LPN.  Small office?  This was not in your original job description?  I would ask about a pay increase along with the duty increase.
thanks...just knowing there are others, same age bracket, skills, etc...does help...
like you, I LOVE this job, and actually chose it - not the other way around. Fortunately, it has not cost me anything, really, like the other poster mentioned; but I too am scared.

It is always upsetting when you life changes because of things out of your control...at our age, we are from the times when people had one job until they retired. I know that is history, but man, this way is ridiculous. Flying from job to job, no continuity, no structure. What good can come of this anyway.

like the other poster mentioned, who cares about us anyway, really. the rich only care about getting richer, and that crap about giving the tax cuts to the rich and they will 'share it' - what a bunch of fools we have been.

thanks for sharing!
Advice on expanding my skills..

If I  want to specialize in Orthopedic or Cardiology or some other specialty, what is the best way to do this?  I currently only do ER.


Would I  have to enroll in an on-line school or can I just use practice tapes? 


Any advice is appreciated!!


Need fast skills update
Need books/tapes to upgrade skills to do acute care work. Any advice on materials I can purchase. Going back to school is not an option right now.
Test your typing skills
http://www.arcadespot.net/play-1126.html
If your DD has previous skills she can post
resume on the on-line sites like monster.com.   There are few jobs that are legit.  If they require $$ upfront you can bet they are a scam. 
A board to discuss how MT skills can
be transitioned into another line of work couldn't hurt. No matter how secure any job or profession appears to be, the situation can change at any time. That is the reality of the workplace with mergers, technology, etc.

One of the the worst career management errors is to become complacent. I can look back on seventeen years in this profession. It has changed, and not to our advantage. I can't predict the future, but it would be naive not to at least consider other options.
Just good parenting skills -nm
m
If you are confident of your skills, testing
x
The people who hate QA are the ones with bad skills and cannot type for nothing!
Maybe these people should learn how to bring their scores up instead of thinking their mistakes are right!
Maybe if you spend more time honing your skills and
x
She fears because of her own lack of transcription skills, sm
not because the ESL doctors do not give good patient care.  If you are not up to the job of transcribing the reports, then you should not try to do it.  But do not blame poor patient care on the ESL doctors.
Good research skills the best skill an MT
x
Your account is too easy for your skills would be my thought.
For instance, you are making very good money easily while other MTs may be on a more difficult account and making less. You may one day be looked at as a person to move into another more challenging account to keep you in the curve of pay for MTs. That would be fair, actually, when you think about it.
failed skills test for national sm

Hi all.  I have been an MT for 10 years and took a skills test for a national and FAILED. 


Oh my goodness, talk about a slap in the face!  All I know is they require 90% accuracy and apparently I failed that. 


It has me questioning my skills at this point.  PLEASE tell me others of you have had this problem!


 


Thanks


Absolutely! Wonderful hobby and your skills will only improve.
I started knitting, quit for a year when I got discouraged because I couldn't fix my mistakes easily, then went back, determined to learn the craft. For me, what was wonderful was when I automatically could recognize what was right and wrong, and fix it easily. Now, I have more yarn than I could ever use, and more projects started than I'll ever finish. It's a lifetime hobby. There'll never be enough yarn.
I started MT to gain skills to eventually work....sm

outside my home. I was working another small business from home too and had been home for 13 years total. My MT skills got me a job as a secretary for the Army. My first position didn't pay a lot, but it was still about $3.50 more an hour than I could find anywhere else locally. In August 2006, with promotions etc., I will have had total increases in salary of 45% in two years. My next move is to start taking some college courses (which my employer will pay for) and applying for positions with a more defined career field. Having a hard time figuring out which field, as I have a lot of options/opportunity.


Working from home served a huge purpose, but since DH is also self-employed, my current job adds a lot of security to our family in terms of health/life insurance, retirement, paid vacations, etc. I added up the cost of all my paid benefits vs. paying out of pocket as an independent contractor, and they were worth another 35 - 40% of my salary, which will increase once I start taking college classes.


If you are not looking in the medical field, gear your resume towards your other skills. MTs have a myriad of skills (research, computer, organizational, listening, following instructions, bookkeeping). If you are an independent contractor, you are more than an MT, you are a small business owner, which puts a host of additional skills on your plate. Get creative and look at some on-line resumes in different fields, you will probably be surprised how many skills you have. 


When I decided to look for a job, I researched all the highest paying companies/opportunities within the distance I was willing to travel and only applied to those companies. It took about a year and a few interviews, but I eventually got exactly what I was looking for. I still get calls from some of the places I interviewed/applied offering jobs.  


I think one reason MTs find it hard to have diverse skills (s/m)
is that for all these years we have been pigeonholed into just one specialty - typing medical reports. When I started MT at my organization, we had a variety of duties. Now we just sit and type. Interestingly, the few who got promotions within or out of the MT department were the ones who weren't too smart, and not very good MTs. The good MTs were kept where they were needed - doing transcription work only. And the smart ones are considered a threat to management, so they have no hope of ever advancing.

I've been to night school to try to broaden my computer skills, and the community college system is totally not on the cutting edge. Everytime I learned something useful, it became obsolete before we could ever implment it in our workplace.

I've looked into changing fields, and one of the big stumbling blocks is all the prerequisites for just about any field of study. Many of them involve the math & science classes I was steered away from due to my gender. (This was the 60s, remember... it was still legal to discriminate back then.) I looked into training as a veterinary technician, and working full-time and going to night school, getting all the classes in that I missed in high school was going to eat up about 4-5 years. It would probably take even longer to get into the vet-tech program. By the time I graduated, I would probably be in my early 70's. What veterinary hospital is going to want to hire a 70 year old newbie who will either retire or die before she's even learned the ropes at the new job?

Meanwhile, what ticks me off is that MT's are expected to have a very broad knowledge of English, medical terminology and computers, and be whiz-bang typists as well. And yet the same people that want speed, accuracy and experience, don't want to pay squat for it.
With your people skills, you'll stay unemployed. nm
x
Dictators/Docs should be rated on their dictation skills!
I get so tired of hearing how hard everyone thinks it's up to the MT to keep trying to decipher poor dictation--that the CMT credential would actually help with that! I have a feeling most MTs probably wouldn't do better/worse if the had the CMT credential. I'm convinced most of us do just fine without a CMT credential if you could just understand many of the darned docs with their poor dictation techniques. How about if they were rated based on their dictation competency! Would it help if we could classify the ones that dictate with speeds like a runaway train, their poor sentence structure, ESL language incompetencies, slurring, mumbling, chewing, etc., so even a marginally competent MT could get the a document transcribed. That's where they should put the onus of responsibility for getting better quality work. My thoughts.
Education
Also, every other civilized country has a better education system than the U.S. We graduate people who cannot read and write. I only hire Canadian MTs by choice anymore, because with a mere high school equivalent education they're leagues ahead of their U.S. counterparts.

When we moved from Canada to the U.S. (I was a child), my siblings felt like they had jumped BACK 5 years in school and quickly became bored and disinterested, while they achieved straight As in Canada.

Education is not a priority here, yet we gripe when jobs go to more educated countries.

Again, I guess it comes down to our vote.

Healtchare and education are not priorities in this country.
You need a little bit of an education.sm
Homosexuals, pedophilia, nymphos, etc, etc. all fall into the category of deviant, aberrant, and perverted behavior. They are not born that way,they choose to be perverts. No 5 year old knows they are a homosexual, they certainly could become psychologically disturbed after some pervert/deviant did something to them at that age or before that.
Try education
xx
a little self-education goes such....SM
SNAKES

Many people share misconceptions about snakes. In reality, the large majority of them are harmless, gentle creatures that provide valuable service in controlling rodent populations around our farms and homes.

The snakes most likely to be seen in our area are garter snakes and gopher snakes, both harmless. King snakes and rattlesnakes are encountered much less frequently. The gopher snake's superficial resemblance to the rattlesnake often creates problems for it, but they can actually be told apart fairly easily. Although the gopher snake will vibrate its tail, it has no rattles, the unique property of the rattler. The gopher snake also has round pupils in its eyes like ours, while the rattler's pupils are elliptical, or pointed like a cat's.


The rattler is the only snake to be avoided in California, and this is not difficult. When hiking or climbing, wear boots and avoid placing hands and feet in places where you cannot see. If you should encounter a rattlesnake or any snake, your best course of action is to back off and allow the snake a way to retreat, which they will generally quickly do. Should someone be bitten by what you believe to be a rattler, attempt to kill the snake if this can be done without delay and take it along to aid in identification. Immediately take the bitten person to the nearest hospital, where healthy people usually recover quickly from such a bite with treatment.


Most snakes are harmless and helpful, and should never be killed unnecessarily, as the benefits they provide are considerable.



http://www.suisunwildlife.org/tips.html#snakes


It all comes down to education. SM
This is my opinion of course, so slam me if you wish or agree with my beliefs. Our society has gone so "far out there" with regard to morals in regard to the welfare system for example. Our young women in this country, not all, but many (particularly the lower income areas) feel their most important goal in life is to have babies and get money from the government. They have multiple babies from different men and are not even sure who their children's biological fathers are. These kids grow up and continue the vicious cycle. In doing so, the lack of education that many U.S. citizens get is ridiculous. It does not take money to get a solid education, but many women (and men) choose the easy road with the welfare system. No government policies put a stop to this, which I believe is just a crush to the hard working and educated part of the population who are successful citizens in their lives. There may be poverty in foreign countries, but not by the citizens choice. India citizens, for example, are very intelligent and educated and willing to be successful in careers. No, I do not agree with outsourcing our work, and the company I work for does not outsource. My point is that standards and morals in many parts of the U.S. stink, for which I blame the lazy, uneducated people working the system, and the government policies that allow this to happen. (Yes, there are those on Medicaid who truly are disabled and need the support. I am not even referring to those individuals). The middle class should be rewarded for working hard, but instead the lower class just gets more and more given to them via support by the government. If this continues, our jobs will be significantly overtaken by foreign countries.
Where I am, if you have the education and
experience, it pays better than MT. Oddly enough, last I heard, no program could code as well as a person, and because profits are involved instead of harder- to-appreciate quality, those who hire have no choice but to care about quality when it comes to coding. The proof is all in the numbers. Put another way, MTs cost money, coders find money. But where I am, the education is stressed more also, and you have to work on-site for the hospitals here (last I heard).
Do you have any MT education, did you
get a certificate?  You need to start there first if not.  Otherwise you should list your resume on the various free job boards. 
You don't know anything about MY education

Question my actions all you want, but let's leave the personal comments out of it, okay?


I could give you a run-down on my "education" but that is not the point here. I asked a question about something I had not dealt with before, and asked how other MTs handle it. I did not ask for personal comments or slurs.


Education is everything - sm
Point them in the direction of a GOOD school.  I am talking one of the Big 3.  You get what you pay for.  I graduated from M-Tec 8 years ago and have been working from home ever since doing acute care.  When I did QA I saw successful graduates also come out of Andrews.  People from schools outside of the Big 3 were so ill-prepared it was impossible for them to keep a job.  They are the ones who come here begging for someone to give them a chance.  Many, many companies will waive the 2 years' experience requirement because the education received at these schools is that good.  I had recruiters banging my door down to test when I graduated.  Check out the good schools!
Sounds like a great way to use the skills you already have, but you have a real career with a future
x
Would state you are a fast learner with good computer skills
and able to pick up things quickly once you are shown. Good luck!!
Proper education? LOL
This is not a regulated or licensed industry. There is no "proper education".

MT schools give a beginner level of knowledge and maybe a little touch on doing dictation but there's no "proper education" to be had here.

I've done this 25 years. I've never had "proper education". I was trained on the job. I was an EMT when I started my first MT job.

And please, stop comparing MTs and nurses like attorneys and paralegals. Those ARE regulated industries. Certification is necessary and a degree necessary.

Get over yourself. ROFL
Continuing Education
Does anyone know where I can get affordable continuing education to keep my CMT? I need 20 hours before this time next year.
By continuing education, do you mean (sm)
the credits you need to renew your CMT credential?  If you are an AAMT member, there are articles in the organization's publications whereby you can earn CEC credits.  M-Tec (on line) has a skillbuilding wizard whereby you can earn credits.  Is there a local AAMT chapter in your area?  This is the easiest way to earn credits, i.e., attending their symposia to earn credits.  E-mail me if you need more info.
BA Music Education. nm
s
entertaining education...

in looking up a term encountered today, i googled to this page, on Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy -- quite informative and fun images....so thought i'd share.


http://www.takotsubo.com/


 


Education assumptions
Many people assume, because they have have four + years of college and can type well, that of course they would be able to do MT. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is quite a long learning curve and for a long time, the salary earned by an at-home just starting out MT (IF you can get hired) would not be out of place in a third world country.

I do not believe that being an MT will be viable for many more years. The pay is getting worse and there is less work due to speech recognition and electronic patient records. More and more people are chasing this work (because you will be competing for a job in a global workplace) which, of course, causes the pay to go even lower.