By C. Douglas Phillips, MD, FACR
Topic number one. I
know that many of you are tech-savvy. I
know for a matter of fact that most people who go into radiology are pretty
much gearheads. You not only are
tech-savvy, but you’re filled to the brim with information technology
minutiae. You can talk processor speeds,
RAM, the “cloud,” and any vast number of techno-wizard topics. So, you all keep yourselves in check. This is for the rest of us.
Voice transcription. Remember when it was shoved mercilessly down our throats as “the end of
our problems?” Yeah, right. I still do not remember anything quite as
efficient as one of the chest radiologists I trained under, a full board of
chest films, 3 blank dictation tapes, and a transcription pool that knew
him well. He could crank. Put that foot down on the alternator
footpedal, and keep them rolling past him. Reports to him within the hour, signed, and fini!
My newest voice transcription iteration has a
new annoying habit. It fills my quiet
moments, which I tend to have while dictating complicated reports with “a” or
“the” or endless streams of “a the a the the the.” Have to learn to keep the thumb off that
switch. If you don’t edit them, they
look like the infamous monkeys on the keyboard working towards Shakespeare.
So, tell me. Voice
transcription. For it, or agin’ it? What makes you nuts?
Professional Biography: C. Douglas Phillips, MD, FACR, is a Professor of Radiology, Director of Head and Neck Imaging, at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York–Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY. He is a member of the Applied Radiology Editorial Advisory Board.