How Strong Is Your Grammar?

One of the most important skills for any medical transcriptionist is grammar. You've got to be an excellent grammarian. The reason is because you are preparing documents that communicate important medical information. Get one thing wrong and it can cause a critical decline in medical care.

Due to the critical nature of patient information, you must ensure that your medical documentation is 100% accurate with regard to critical errors. Major and minor errors allow for only a 2% error rate. That means your documents have to be at least 98% accurate overall. You have zero room for critical errors. That makes the need for grammar very important.

So does grammar affect a critical error? It can. Here are some examples where grammar can be a factor in how well a sentence is communicated.

• The patient's prescriptions will be already by 9 a.m. Sept. 12, 2010.

Do you mean the prescriptions will be all ready or do you mean already at the doctor's office? This is critical because if the prescriptions will be ready but not at the doctor's office then it could lead to a misunderstanding and lead to a decline in patient care. Make sure you correct your grammar and make your sentences say what you mean them to say.

• The doctor proscribed penicillin.

Proscribe is a word that means to prohibit or to limit. Is the doctor prohibited the use of penicillin by the patient or did he intend to prescribe it for the patient?

So you can see how easy it is it get mixed up with just a single letter. That is why you must be an expert in grammar so that you can catch critical errors before they happen. That's a part of the medical transcriptionist's job. It's also something you'll learn how to do in training.