Will Voice Recognition Ruin Your Medical Transcription Career? by Stephanie Foster One of the biggest fears medical transcriptionists have for their careers relates to voice recognition software. And indeed, some doctors are using it to transcribe their reports. But voice recognition is far from reliable enough to take over all that a good medical transcriptionist can do.Current software just isn't up to the job. Medical reports need an exceptional degree of accuracy that is incredibly difficult for a machine to match. It goes beyond figuring out which word or drug the physician said, and includes issues such as accurate punctuation.When you think about words that might challenge a voice recognition software,

you could think of too, to and two, or their and they're but these aren't even the biggest problems. Many drugs have similar names, sometimes just because you're talking brand name versus generic, but other times the two drugs aren't related. Then there are words that can run together, such as "you're in" versus "urine".The learning curve is a big part of what will keep many doctors from using software. It takes time to train the software to your voice, as well as to train yourself to speak slowly enough.

I can tell you from personal experience that many doctors dictate their notes for transcription at an incredibly fast rate of speech. Many will simply be unwilling to slow down so that a computer can do the work.And of course then the work would still need to be proofread. The extra work will not be of interest to many doctors.However, some medical transcriptionists have tried voice recognition software too. It can work for transcriptionists, rather than against. The added step of needing to proofread is not always too much of a burden. But it can be challenging to speak as you listen.