1 registered
(ABMT)
and 11 anonymous users online.
|
|
|
#95355 - 04/11/08 04:16 PM
Comma usage (rant warning)
|
missp
Member
Registered: 09/11/99
Posts: 749
Loc: Tied to my desk typing (where ...
|
I have been at my job for 16 years now. I now have a new radiologist who uses the word "nor" when it clearly should be "or" (and I always change this) and, whose sentences I have to complete, or else it would not be a very professional sounding report. He now wants to tell me not to put commas in this sentence: "focal atelectasis/infiltrate, versus developed scar, versus bronchoalvelolar carcinoma". He wants me to go in and take the commas out before he will sign it! I typed xrays from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. this morning, and found this report sitting on my desk when I came in. I am sorry, I just think it sounds more professional to put the commas in (the other radiologists wouldn't have sent it back), and I work for the hospital, NOT the doctor. Be advised, I do NOT change anything that might in any way change the meaning of the sentence.
I guess I am just anal about this sort of thing. For some reason it just pushes my HOT button  The boss hasn't ever set any guidelines about this sort of thing. She has more important things to worry about 
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95363 - 04/11/08 05:18 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: missp]
|
meri
Member
Registered: 09/08/01
Posts: 8813
Loc: Murrieta, California
|
Well, I agree with your doctor on this one. Sorry! Never have used commas in between versus.
Meri
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95365 - 04/11/08 05:28 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: meri]
|
missp
Member
Registered: 09/11/99
Posts: 749
Loc: Tied to my desk typing (where ...
|
Thanks Meri. I am calmer now :). I think somewhere along the line I just learned different. I am middle-aged, and I think it's hard to change the way I've been used to doing things. Plus the other radiologists wouldn't have thought that was worth making the transcriptionist go to the trouble of editing and re-distributing. Also, it's not just this. This radiologist has been nit-picking all of us to death. And it's not things that alter the medical information (I don't change things unless I am absolutely certain). For instance, he will change something, then we will take it up to him for signature and he will tell us to change the same part again! Arghh
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95370 - 04/11/08 05:43 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: missp]
|
14tonks
Member
Registered: 10/25/01
Posts: 6295
Loc: Only 3rd world country in US
|
Oh, we all deal with the editing that doesn't improve things once in a while. I've got a junior doctor in one of my practices whose dictation style was truly horrible when he started. Apparently the senior partner, who is both an excellent dictator and an ultimate nitpicker, must have been riding him mercilessly about it as some of his syntax is gradually getting untangled. Senior likes to dictate things as "There is mild (15% to 30%) stenosis of the RCA." Junior has sort of, kind of tried to adapt that format, only he comes up with lulus like "There is (15% to 30%) distally," dictating parentheses every time he dictates a percent whether there is anything to make a parenthetical remark about or not, LOL--and I've had a sub just stick those parentheses in, too, just because the doctor said "open paren...close paren." Accckkkk.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95380 - 04/11/08 06:44 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: 14tonks]
|
missp
Member
Registered: 09/11/99
Posts: 749
Loc: Tied to my desk typing (where ...
|
Is he (Junior) an ESL?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95383 - 04/11/08 07:00 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: missp]
|
14tonks
Member
Registered: 10/25/01
Posts: 6295
Loc: Only 3rd world country in US
|
No, that one's an All-American boy of the pure pedigreed WASP variety, LOL. English composition, however, was obviously never his subject.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95384 - 04/11/08 07:29 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: 14tonks]
|
missp
Member
Registered: 09/11/99
Posts: 749
Loc: Tied to my desk typing (where ...
|
How is it that some of the smartest people have trouble with proper grammar? (I say that knowing full well that I have just proven that I myself have probably forgotten some of the rules-lol).
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95451 - 04/12/08 05:41 PM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: 14tonks]
|
MTBeach
Junior Member
Registered: 12/30/04
Posts: 44
Loc: Connecticut
|
Senior likes to dictate things as "There is mild (15% to 30%) stenosis of the RCA." Junior has sort of, kind of tried to adapt that format, only he comes up with lulus like "There is (15% to 30%) distally," dictating parentheses every time he dictates a percent whether there is anything to make a parenthetical remark about or not, LOL--and I've had a sub just stick those parentheses in, too, just because the doctor said "open paren...close paren." Accckkkk.
Awww...at least he's trying! Some of them don't even attempt to "reform."
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95511 - 04/14/08 12:58 AM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: MTBeach]
|
14tonks
Member
Registered: 10/25/01
Posts: 6295
Loc: Only 3rd world country in US
|
Awww...at least he's trying! Some of them don't even attempt to "reform."
Oh, I agree. He's a very nice guy who really is trying hard to do a better job, and he actually has improved quite a bit since last July. He's getting much, much better about the go back and change, go back and take out, go back and add in stuff, which is really the biggest pain about doing him. The way he just started slinging those parentheses in everywhere once he finally figured out the things existed has had me rolling my eyeballs and chuckling a bit, though.
I think the problem with some of the newer guys in the radiology and allied fields is that a number of them are coming out of hospitals who have bought into the have the doctor dictate to VR and correct himself nonsense, which means no one has ever taken a blue pencil to the cr*p they spout until they get out into private practice. The last couple of new grads I've dealt with have not only been clueless how to use a handheld recorder, but they have been simply mind boggled at having an MT edit them into coherence (happily mind boggled, but still mind boggled).
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#95513 - 04/14/08 05:24 AM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: missp]
|
Agnostic
Member
Registered: 06/28/03
Posts: 3118
Loc: Chennai, TN, India
|
I have to agree with meri on this one. That being said, I follow the golden rule that states that the man who pays the gold makes the rules. He wants a comma after every word in a sentence? Give him a transcript full of commas. After all, he is going to sign that report. 
_________________________
Harry
-----
Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.--Bertrand Russell
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#96010 - 04/19/08 02:24 AM
Re: Comma usage (rant warning)
[Re: missp]
|
AMT
New Member
Registered: 02/13/07
Posts: 4
|
It is supposed to be typed without commas. Back when I did some neuropsychology, it was to indicate that the diagnosis fell somewhere amidst, or including, all of the diagnoses versus the next - sometimes 8 dx long.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
Moderator: ebadrake
|
