Carol B., copyright protected
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Unit Title: Introduction
Page Title: Introduction to Pathophysiology
Learning Objective: The purpose of this module is to build upon the material presented in Anatomy and Disease in addition to introducing the student to the body’s systems, maladies, illnesses, problems, and pathologies.
Just as human anatomy is an important part of becoming immersed in the world of medical terminology, another important element in this educational journey is pathophysiology. Pathophysiology, is a big word which sounds really difficult, but simply stated means the functional changes/abnormalities which accompany a disease or syndrome.
The unit you are about to embark upon will delve into the structures which encompass the body’s many systems. If human anatomy is the train, pathophysiology is the cargo being stored inside. Systems are the network which, together with anatomy, are interdependent upon one another. What happens in the digestive system can very well affect the cardiovascular system. An ailment of the nervous system is certain to cause symptoms in other areas, such as the endocrine system, the cardiovascular system, and/or the excretory system.
Coupled with what you learned in human anatomy, you will begin to see the processes, diseases, and maladies which can cause the structure of the body to go awry. On an actual transcribed report, the information you learned in anatomy will come in handy for the Physical Examination portion of a report. Within pathophysiology, the information you are about to learn will benefit you on the Review of Systems section of a medical report.
A disease seems like a simple concept. After all, the patient goes to the doctor, hospital, clinic, etc., and he or she might be diagnosed with a disease, right? Well is the disease in existence with other comorbities? What are the pathologic symptoms? Are clinical findings present? If one is able to see the indicators of illness, this would be called a sign. An example of this is a wound on the skin. However, if a patient presents to the emergency room with arm pain and no outward “signs,” then this would be called a symptom. Diseases, signs, and symptoms, oh my. A transcriptionist could easily get lost in the jungle that is medicine, right? This unit is structured to be your map, your guide, your compass as you work through the many ailments that affect the stucture that is the human body. As you work through these body systems and disease processes, remember that you are not expected to memorize everything you see. You should, however, begin to understand what you are seeing, be able to apply it to the information previously learned, and be prepared to know where to look when you aren’t sure about something. Never ever guess at what an ailment “sounds like.” Remember, as a transcriptionist document integrity is foremost. Keeping this in mind and practicing it now will benefit you greatly in your future career as a medical transcriptionist.
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A LESSON FROM THE TURTLE
By Carol B., CMT (copyright protected)
Turtle? Did you read that title correctly? You bet you did. My life’s philosophy is based on the turtle. Following in his slow but steady footsteps, you just might be surprised at how very wise this carapaced wonder is.
“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out,” so said U.S. chemist, diplomat, and educator, James Bryant Conant in the twentieth century. Did you know that most land turtles spend their life looking down at objects in front of them? Their large shell makes it difficult for predators to crush them, yet coupled with their sprawling gait, they make progress, one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race for the turtle. When it comes to patience, procrastination, and persistence, slow and steady wins the race for us 2-legged variety as well.
Do you have a piece of paper nearby and something with which to write? Anything will do. First write the word “procrastination” on that piece of paper. Underneath it, write the word “patience.” Finally underneath those two words, write “persistence.” Did you notice that procrastination took a long longer to write, contained more letters, and has more syllables than the other two words? Yet, we as human beings often expend exuberant amounts of time doing just that, procrastinating. Patience: Two syllables, eight letters, easy to say, but so very difficult for so many of us to practice. Finally, persistence. That word just flows off the tongue, it sounds effortless, elegant, and with it our dreams become goals in action. The turtle has it, the turtle “gets” it, one step at a time….. and so can you.
You may be a new student with Career Step, partially through the program, or maybe a graduate with a new job. Wherever you are in this “step” of your life, we ALL have goals, both personally and professionally. Some of us KNOW what those goals are, some of us have no idea, and some of us are so busy that our goal is to wake up, get through the day, survive, and do it all over again. I am here to tell you there is so much more to life. Behold that turtle, his footsteps are small but mighty. Let me explain how it works for me, and if you like my ideas, try them out for yourself. If not, charter a course for yourself, lay down the groundwork, and be your own turtle.
I have been employed with Career Step as a writer/editor for 2 months now. Two months and here I sit prepared to help you charter a plan of action for your own life? You bet! The course that got me here is the one I would like to explain. I returned to college as an adult, scared out of my wit and not knowing where or how I would “fit” in. Through the encouragement of loved ones, one person in particular, I chartered my destiny. I set goals: personally, financially, and educationally. I put it in writing, and most importantly, I developed ACHIEVABLE goals. I put things on my list like “sign up for classes, buy notebooks, get computer, attend class everyday, develop study techniques, don’t eat after 8 p.m., have a social life, laugh, finish the month of September with at least a B average in all 5 classes.” That was my September goal list. When October 1 arrived, I had achieved ALL of my goals. Surprise! Surprise! That is not to say that I didn’t have a period of adjustment, for I did; however, I wasn’t alone in my pursuits. Those who truly cared about me and my goals stuck by me. I decided to “house clean” my personal life and surround myself with positive people who believed in me and wanted to see me move ahead. Gone were the naysayers and those who held me down, told me it was impossible to achieve my dreams, and that I should be content in my job with benefits no matter how unhappy I was. Funny, when I looked in the mirror I only saw ME looking back and not the faces of those who held me down. I removed those negative people from my life and trudged forward, keeping that turtle spirit in my heart. It hurt to let go, but it would have hurt more to stay in negativity and wallow in anger.
I wrote goals for each month of my several years in college, and each month I saw the fruits of my labor and my goals in action. I did the same thing for my personal life. I set goals. It may sound funny or seem odd to sit down and write personal goals, but it worked for me. I wrote down things like “take the dog for a walk, go to Barnes and Noble and get a good fiction book to read, meet new people, engage in life, call old friends, color your hair.” Again, what an amazing sense of accomplishment when those goals were achieved. My list was clear, my heart felt full, and best of all, I was getting ahead.
You may wonder if I ever fell short and failed to reach a monthly goal. Sure did! The beauty of life is that there are second chances available. I would add that goal to the next month and be sure to work harder on engaging myself. Sometimes, I aimed TOO high and reached for something nearly impossible. White-Out to the rescue. You may also choose to write in pencil. Erasers can be a reliable friend.
Be realistic in your goal-setting but be true to self. Try something new. If it feels uncomfortable doing something you know needs to be done to get ahead, do it anyway. It’s all a part of the bigger picture. I told myself this time and again. I kept myself surrounded in positive people, did things for myself, enjoyed life, engaged in new things, and soon I was hearing the pomp and circumstance. I graduated with three degrees, most notably, a B.A. in English with a near 4.0 GPA, Summa Cum Laude. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.
I’m not done, though. My journey has just begun. The beauty of the turtle is that he keeps sticking his neck out. He keeps moving ahead. He is never idle for long. I really like this philosophy and highly recommend it.
My goals for 2007 were to start writing a novel, find new employment, get my CMT status, and do something to give back to community. I am happy to say all of those goals are achieved. How cool is it that I have three months left to go and a whole notebook full of paper?
The future and change is not something to be feared, but rather to be revered. No matter how big the mountain might seem, conquering it and climbing to the top starts with a baby step.The turtle is willing to do it and so can you.
Start with a notebook, a journal, and Word document, whatever medium you feel most comfortable with. You may want to start with daily goals. Break your studying down into manageable blocks. Decide how much time you are going to spend on something and allocate it. Give yourself break time. Block out distractions. Get a sitter or someone to walk the dog so that YOU can achieve your goals. Focus only on today. Don’t worry about the test next week, the laundry to be folded, the car that needs a new muffler, or how you are going to get it all done. Look at your list of manageable goals, developed and designed by you, and one at a time, get them done. Surround yourself with positive people. If all you know is one person who will listen and be there for you, a sort of “emotional coach and listener” for you, then embrace that person. It worked for me and it can and will work for you.
Have patience with yourself, keep the persistence alive in your heart, and cross procrastination off your list right now. It’s too long of a word, uses up unnecessary ink in the pen, and only serves to delay your dreams. Be that turtle. Embrace your dreams. Set your goals. Action is a footstep away.
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Carol B., Copyright protected
Human anatomy and disease processes are an integral part of medical terminology. Understanding the body, its mechanisms, parts, and disease processes will prove tremendously helpful during transcription. Some of the most commonly used medical words and phrases deal with basic human anatomy or body structures.
However, medical transcription as a career deals largely with practical-application medical terms. This means that you as a transcriptionist are not likely to be transcribing research summaries, theories, or theoretical papers (although occasionally a paragraph or two may be required in a medical report or correspondence). Therefore, it is highly unlikely that you will get into any detailed or theoretic postulations on medical principles. Instead, you will be deciphering the physical manifestations a patient has been experiencing, his/her actual presentation (this includes the examination, as well as any laboratory tests, x-rays, or other types of studies), the treatment of any problems, how they react to that treatment, and any future suggestions for the patient.
In this setting, a rudimentary understanding of bones, muscles, arteries and veins, ligaments, joints, and organs becomes important. The more terms you are familiar with, the less time you will spend wandering aimlessly through your reference books.
The key word here is rudimentary. Do not be overwhelmed by everything in this module. You are not expected to be a doctor or to know everything that a doctor knows. It is neither your responsibility nor your right to change in a fundamental way anything a dictator diagnoses, treats, or prescribes. In fact, doing so will probably get you fired. It is the case, however, that you may be able to easily locate a word or understand a sentence in a report because you know the meaning of a word or the location in the body to which a specific term refers.
As you begin, you will be spending a great deal of time trying to decipher what a doctor might be saying and then looking for the correct spelling of that word in a dictionary. Of course, it is not feasible for you to look up everything in the dictionary. It is up to you, the student, how much energy and mental power you will choose to devote to this aspect of your training. By investing more time now, you may spend less time searching through your reference books later. In any case, if you have seen and transcribed a word in the past, it would be easier to recall.
Having an understanding of basic anatomy and parts are located and coupling that with an understanding of disease processes, your speed will significantly increase. You will also become a valuable asset as an employee in a job setting, for you will not inadvertently use an inappropriate word because you are unsure of its meaning and/or if it will "fit" in the sentence.
Again, it is not totally essential to know, as a doctor would be required to know, every minute detail of the human anatomy. It is unnecessary to learn and be able to correctly label every system and structure of the body. Doing so would be prohibitively time consuming, and it is overkill.
You should be able to spell medical terms correctly and know approximately where they are located in the body. (For example, you should be able to recognize whether a word is a bone or part of the ear structure). Furthermore, understanding of the diseases, or what could go wrong with the body, is especially helpful because it is exactly what you will be typing as a transcriptionist. It will make your research easier as well. All of this should come together to help you identify what a doctor is saying based on the context of the report, and you will avoid wasting your valuable time looking up all possible spellings and reading corresponding definitions to guarantee accuracy—because, of course, accuracy is extremely important.
This module contains several figures representing different anatomical parts of the human body, labeled appropriately, as well as textual information regarding them. Every structure on the figures which is given a number is a term you should be familiar with. This will give you an opportunity to not only see the word written, but to experience typing it yourself. If you have the time, it is a good idea to type the lists into your computer. This also will reiterate the spelling in your mind and make you faster. It will also get you accustomed to seeing the word typed and spelled correctly. Being able to pick a misspelled word out of a report is a valuable skill.
Again, for the purposes of this module and the terminology lists, spelling should be your primary concern as a transcriptionist. Notice first of all what type of word it is, i.e., a muscle or an artery, and also where in the body it is located, i.e., extremities, torso, or head. While a majority of your exercises in this module are centered around the spelling of medical words, you will also be required to answer questions relating to word differentiation and disease processes.
In the following sessions you should notice similarities between the names of arteries, veins, bones, ligaments, nerves, and muscles and where they are found in the body. Specifically, you may see the same word appear in reference to many of these structures. For example, a bone of the forearm is called the ulna. There is, consequently, an ulnar nerve, ulnar artery, ulnar ligament, radioulnar joint, etc. These exercises will give you experience identifying the appropriate spelling and writing the same words in several different situations. Notice also that when the same term is used multiple times for different structures, they are in the same area of the body, as noted in the example of ulna/ulnar. This makes your job of knowing the spelling and approximate body location much easier.
This module provides supplemental information on different physiological and anatomical structures and body systems. However, the information is fairly basic, on a par with high school or freshman-level college anatomy. Use the information to reiterate the portions of anatomy and physiology which are relevant to medical transcription. You will be given tips about when and where you are likely to see the terms you are learning, in a real world environment.
It could be said that medicine itself is simply the diagnosis and treatment of disease. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of understanding something about disease processes and relating it to the medical reports you will eventually be transcribing. All of these terms will become a part of your daily life as a transcriptionist.
In the following sessions, you will learn what types of injuries and diseases relate to a particular part of the human body. Although there are far too many individual diseases, syndromes, injuries, signs, and treatments for you to learn every one of them here, we have made every effort to include the most common ones. It may or may not be the case that your job as an MT will require a broad knowledge of all types of medical reports, as we cover in this module, but your marketability will increase with every term you learn and can identify either by spelling or by meaning.
As you work through the following sessions, try not to be overwhelmed by all of the information. You are not expected to know everything, and you will have ample opportunity to look things up to determine meaning or verify appropriate context. Concentrate on developing and fine tuning your editing skills. Does a word or a sentence look correct to you, and why or why not? Pay close attention to sections of this module that relate what you are learning to what you will eventually be doing. This is what you will actually be transcribing, both in the course and in the real world.
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By Carol B., copyright protected
Module Title: The Next Step: Certified Medical Transcriptionist Prep Career Advancement Program
Unit Title: Course Overview
elcome o th MT rep areer avncement rogram. ongratulations o taing a carer tep toards yur fuure! Were you able to read that sentence and know exactly what was written or did you have some difficulty making sense of it? Allow me to rephrase: Welcome to the CMT prep career advancement program. Congratulations on taking a career step towards your future! In this example, one missing letter made all the difference. The same can be said when adding the letter “C” to “MT,” thus the CMT distinction. As a seasoned MT, you are already aware that one letter can often make a world of difference in how a word is enunciated, written, pronounced, or conceptualized, etc.
Medicine and its varied body systems are difficult enough. Learning and studying to prep for the CMT exam need not be the nightmarish task many believe it is. By taking this course, you have in essence, made the commitment to acquire the additional expertise necessary to advance in your medical transcription career and obtain certification and recognition of that expertise. The commitment includes the determination to put forth the effort needed to reach your certification goal. T he process of HOW you retain that material and then applying those techniques to future endeavors need not be a daunting task. In fact, it could be, dare I say it, downright fun to learn the skill set needed to add those three little important letters after your name: CMT.
Everything we say and hear as MT’s can be broken down into 26 components. While it may sound like a lot, what if I told you those 26 components were the letters that make up the alphabet? Think about it: the words doctors dictate, it all comes down to the 26 letters of the alphabet scattered and jumbled, organized and hashed apart, reassembled and presented to you as both the spoken and written word. How terrific would it be to understand those words, those concepts of medicine, from the ground up, one skill set, one letter at a time.
It truly is as easy as A-B-C to study for the CMT. Consider the example of what DNA represents: the building blocks of all living organisms. Just as DNA is a blueprint of storage information, this training program will be your blueprint, broken down into understandable and meaningful sections , best of all “learnable” and memorable components. The concepts within this program will help take your existing “DNA”, that is your storage bank of information, and couple that with the building blocks needed to prepare for the CMT test. You will be able to take this knowledge far beyond just preparing for this one test one time. You will be able to apply these building blocks, these skills, these “ABC’s, to your on-the-job daily situations and dictators.
There is a famous Chinese proverb which states , “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” There is a similar proverb I abide by and that is, “Teach an MT to memorize and he or she floats by. Give the MT the building blocks and techniques needed to retain and apply, and he or she swims for life.” In my career as an MT, I would be offended when someone would say to me, “I don’t know how you can sit there and do that all day, it isn’t as if you’re a doctor,” to which my reply would be, “No, but I sure have to think like one!” Indirectly, medical transcriptionists profoundly impact patient care via the words which appear on the medial record. This program will give you the building blocks needed to think assess what doctors are dictating, anticipate what might be on the exam, address study skills and tips, learn instead of simply memorizing, and ultimately chart your course towards sitting down to test for the CMT with a aura of confidence and a skill set in place ready to help you add that “C” building block and turn your MT into a CMT.
Three A-B-C blocks to keep in mind as you work through this training program: Always Be in Control. You have already taken the initiative to control part of your destiny. Education is one of the rare forums in life where we can control our destiny. Having fun yet? Sound inviting? At the very least, do you feel a bit less apprehensive about the process of education? All those who nodded yes can stay, the rest can hit the escape key. <<kidding, kidding>> As you continue on, you’ll soon see all the blocks coming together with a goal of helping you obtain the coveted CMT title.
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***Additional writing samples/published works are available upon request.***