Can medical transcription exp.help in nursing school?

Annachu512, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

i just started medical transcription and i was wondering can it help me while in nursing in nursing school or if i wanted a career as rn mds coordinator?

i'm sure it will help a lot in certain classes :) lots of people come into nursing or other medical fields with no real experience of any kind in the healthcare field. not a bad thing but others that have had that experience will have a bit of an edge. i have been a pharmacy technician for 11 years and i cannot wait for pharmacology :) most people find this class pretty difficult.

NCRNMDM, ASN, RN · Jan 2, 2012

Being familiar with medical terms, procedure names, and tests will help you out a bit, but it won't be an earth-shattering revelation for you during nursing school. Working as a CNA helps the most because you are exposed to patients, nursing work, procedures, and actual hands on care. However, anything that gives you an advantage is always nice. With that being said, don't think that you will cruise through nursing school just because you have this experience. It will be challenging no matter what kind of experience you have.

Cortisol · Jan 2, 2012

I know someone who was a medical transcriptionist for 20+ years before going to Medical School. She knew pathology, diseases, and treatments VERY well and accredits much of her knowledge to her career as a transcriptionist.

Like almost everyone else, she lacked the clinical skills when she first started her rotations, but she managed as anyone else did.

As a transcriptionist, you don't have to really understand pathophysiology like you would as a nurse, but having heard about the diseases and having a sound medical terminology background will definitely help you in nursing school!

Lo2128 · Jan 19, 2012

i just started medical transcription and i was wondering can it help me while in nursing in nursing school or if i wanted a career as rn mds coordinator?

Absolutely it will help you. You will he ahead of the game with the medical terminology that you are familiar with.

allnurses Guide · Jan 20, 2012

It helps some but not as much as you would think. It helps with understanding the terminology in your reading and in class lecture. But other than that, not so much.

21+ year transcriptionist here who just graduated in December and taking NCLEX next week. :)

RNManda · Jan 20, 2012

I would say it depends on what kind of transcriptionist you are in terms of how much you try to learn about the things you are typing versus just typing what you hear and verifying without really wanting to dig deeper.

I've been a transcriptionist for 5 years and graduating from an ADN program in May. My transcription experience has helped me tremendously, not just with terminology but with pharmacology, labs/diagnostics (normal/abnormal findings and what tests are used when), signs and symptoms of different disease processes, treatments, etc. The things I have learned from my transcription career were the foundation for me to build on in nursing school and have made it so that I have more time to study the things I don't already know. Every clinical instructor that I've had has said that my amount of knowledge far surpasses that which they would expect from a student and how impressed they were. My grades are mostly A's with a couple of B's, and it seems that a lot of stuff is just second nature to me because of my job.

I don't say any of this to brag about myself, just trying to give a different perspective that sometimes the transcription experience helps you more than just knowing terminology if you put more into your transcription education than just learning what the words mean. :)

♑ Capricorn ♑ · Jan 20, 2012

@ ivorylovecali

i think it would help in the sense that you will be familiar with medical terms and have an understanding of how to break down the words into simpler terms for easy understanding. most nursing schools that i know of don't have any classes in medical terminology perse. i know my school doesn't offer such classes. vocabulary-wise it puts you at an advantage, which is a good thing. i wouldn't say its totally useless. :)