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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

DO YOU SPEAK DOCTORESE?

Have you ever gone to the doctor to tell him/her your symptoms


and he tells you

that you probably have a URI/pharyngitis.



You probably wonder "am I going to die"?

Let me calm your fears. While is sounds scary, it just means that you have an upper respiratory infection with a sore throat. Why all the complicated language? I don't know but your exam was probably dictated a little something like this:

...TMs and EACs normal. Nares have turbinate injection and edema. Oropharynx erythematous, no fetor or exudate. Mucous membranes moist without lesion...

That's what I get to transcribe.



I was in for a little shock when I started MT school


and thought I would be able to transcribe the above dictation. It was like learning to say "Hi, how are you? I'm fine thank you. What is the weather like? Where do you live..." etc in a new language and then be expected to sit down and type dictation in that same language, but he/she isn't saying "Hi, how are you? I'm fine thank you. What is the weather like? Where do you live..."etc.

You get to type a foreign language and be expected to get all of the spelling and punctuation exactly right. Then you get the pleasure of hearing all the background noise (coughing, yawning, phones, horns, alarms, beeps, other dictations, etc... ) muffling the already impossible new language. Some dictators speak at frightening speeds while others might have the mic too close to their mouth. And then you have my favorite... ESL dictators...

So far I just skip those ones. Shhh. Don't tell my instructors.

I am now only a couple of weeks away from taking my final exam and thought I would test you on some of the Doctorese language I have learned.

What part of the body do the following conditions affect?:

1) Acute renal failure secondary to HIV nephropathy

2) Cardiomyopathy

3) Diabetic leg ulcers with cellulitis

4) Diverticulitis

5) Upper gastrointestinal bleeding

6) Acalculus cholecystitis with pancreatitis.

7) Schizophrenia.

Do I know what each of these is? Only if I look them up first, but I can transcribe them now. (if they are spoken clearly and only by a dictator that speaks English!) I think I am in trouble!

Ok so I am desperate to post, and since I have to study instead, I thought I would combine the two. They do say that teachers make the best learners. Was I a pretty good teacher?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, sis, I am so glad you are back. I too find MANY things to do instead of the most important ones. But you are even better than that--you combined the best of both worlds and we are better for it.

Now we have one more member of the family who speaks a foreign language. Now I know who to call when I get my diagnosis.

I don't know all those things you had down but I know I have had a few of them--I hope they weren't too bad, especially Schizophrenia, now what was that again?

Anonymous said...

By the way, that was me, Shauna aka Pineapple Princess.