Founder's Note

Andrea Anaya, Founder of Career Step

Writing a home study course in medical transcription is not something that I envisioned myself doing when I was a child. You know, "when I grow up. . ." It just never occurred to me. But, sometimes life takes interesting turns and we end up being challenged a bit more than we had perhaps anticipated (or hoped).

Medical transcription is typically not an easy field to break into, and there were several factors which led me to develop the Career Step course.

Let me give you a little bit of my background. I grew up in Eagle River, Alaska. I got into the field initially through my mother, who sort of "fell" into the career. With six children at home, she had never worked consistently outside of our home although she did do editing and proofreading on a fairly regular basis. When I was still in elementary school, she stumbled upon an offer to bid on a contract for a couple of Alaska "bush" hospitals. Not thinking her bid would be accepted, she submitted it. It turned out that she got that bid, and with only an IBM Selectric typewriter, a transcriber, and a Dorland's Medical Dictionary, she tackled the first tapes that arrived. And I do mean "tackled." She could do only 2 pages a day in those early days, as she had received no prior training or experience, and had never worked in any way in the medical field. She did have a sister with a service in another state and spent several hours on the phone with her, filling in blanks and getting the reports finished so they could actually be returned to the hospitals. Her reports were also typed on 3-part U.S. Government forms, so all the carbons had to be corrected.

By the time I got into high school, she had augmented her small contracts with some larger contracts and had a small transcription business with several employees, that she ran out of our home. She started suggesting to me that I learn the profession. Of course, as a teenager I already knew everything and didn't figure that was something that would be worthwhile. My mother, however, can be very persistent. She started me off with a radiology contract. I had a great advantage in my learning experience because I had my mom. I wouldn't even attempt to work without my mother a foot away from me, and even so, got so frustrated that I beat her equipment and books to a pulp — throwing them across the room, stomping on the foot pedal, etc. (Please bear in mind that I was only 16 at the time.)

My mother was a perfectionist, and she instilled the same attention for detail in me. However, in my delusional teenage state I figured that it was just a temporary time-filler. I would go to college, meet Mr. Wonderful, and he would support me for the rest of my life while I raised perfect children. Well — here's a shocker — this didn't happen! I did go away to school, and I did get married. However, my husband discovered right off the bat that I had this wonderful skill — a skill with which I could make more money than he could. And so I found myself supporting my family.

I began working exclusively in my home in 1990. I worked until I went into labor with my daughter (at which point I called and asked the service I was working for if I could possibly skip my work that morning) and went back to work when she was two weeks old.

A few months later I was offered a job in Colorado. It was a start-up company with a huge new contract on the burner and no transcriptionists to do the work! Not the best situation for them to be in. So I moved my family to Colorado. The first two months I was there I had no home of my own to work in, so I worked out of their offices. These were crazy months. I was working from about 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. (I had a crib in the office for my baby). In addition to typing more than 70,000 lines in the first month I was involved in testing, hiring, training, editing, printing, etc. Throughout the hiring process, we had only one person who came to us who could actually sit right down and begin working. Everyone else we had to train, to a greater or lesser extent.

I found that there were a lot of people who called on our ad for employment, but none of them had any experience and usually no training either. So, there were a lot of people interested in doing medical transcription work, and a lot of work to be done. The problem was that there was no training.

A few people did apply who had some prior training. One had paid almost $6000 and spent 2 years full time in school. She didn't even finish her first report before she gave up, completely discouraged. She told me later that in her training she had done some actual transcribing toward the end of her schooling. However, she informed me that the dictators she had practiced on always talked slowly and clearly, enunciated everything, and spelled out any difficult medical terms or drugs. HAH! This simply does not happen in the real world.

I also had dozens of people — friends, casual acquaintances, contacts at church — who asked me how they could learn to do what I was doing.

The combination of these three significant factors — people who wanted to be transcriptionists, plenty of transcription work, and no competent and affordable training — motivated me to begin working on a curriculum for teaching medical transcription. It went through many stages and changes and ended up being the better part of four years' work to get the course that we are currently selling. My goal when I started was this: a medical transcription course that is comprehensive, easy to use, and contains enough practical experience so that anyone who goes through it conscientiously WILL be able to do transcription when they are finished. And, just as important, a course that is affordable. A tall order, I discovered.

How did I accomplish this? Well, I drew extensively on my own personal experience and the recollection of my personal frustrations during my learning process. What did I wish someone had told me before I sat down in front of the typewriter? I combined this with my experience in training other people. What did they have the hardest time understanding and dealing with?

Finally, I sought out and received mountains of feedback. Let me preface this by telling you that I know a LOT of transcriptionists. My mother is a transcriptionist. I have three sisters, all of whom do transcription. One of my brothers does transcription, as do two of my brothers-in-law. I have friends I trained who do transcription, and I have met an awful lot of colleagues and co-workers over the years who (obviously) are transcriptionists. Furthermore, I know several people who own their own transcription services, are editors for services, or train and hire for large transcription services. I informed these people what I planned on doing and asked them to make notes, to write down anything they discovered while doing their own work, reading the work from other transcriptionists, trainees, or people testing for a job.

And that is exactly what they did. The Career Step curriculum includes all their feedback, ideas, and suggestions, as well as the focus on teaching the three basic skill requirements: typing, grammar, and medical terminology, preparatory to doing transcription. However, the most useful and extensive part of the course is the practical experience.

I know that the course I ended up with meets all of my initial goals. First, it is the most affordable quality course on the market. Second, and much more important, it will teach anyone transcription who has the desire and the discipline to complete it.

Thanks for your attention for so long. I wish you the very best in pursuit of your new career and hope that we can help you get there!

Sincerely,

Andrea Anaya