Books You'll Need as a Medical Transcriptionist

Resources and Tools for Medical Transcriptionists

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The internet has made it much simpler to look up unfamiliar medical terminology, but you still need some good quality resources. Mostly this is because it can be difficult to come up with reliable resources online. Too many contain mistakes.

A good medical dictionary is a must. While you will have built up a great vocabulary in your medical transcription training and it grows as you work, sometimes you’ll need to look up a word in your medical dictionary. Fortunately, this is one book that you can buy used if that is your preference, since the vocabulary doesn’t change that much. Stedman and Dorland are both reputable.

Not so for your drug reference book. This needs to be as up to date as possible, and then sometimes you’ll still be looking new drugs up online. The best drug book is the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR), but if that’s out of the budget, you can do as I did and buy a Nursing Drug Guide. When I was a medical transcriptionist, I used online resources pretty heavily, but my drug reference book was still extremely useful.

The medical abbreviation book I found to be just about irreplaceable. It can be very difficult to figure out what a given abbreviation means, and I found the book much easier to use than trying to find the abbreviation online.

The AAMT Book of Style is an excellent resource. Many employers will expect you to go by this guide, so you will want it on your desk.

An anatomy text can be quite useful too when you’re trying to understand what the doctor is talking about. Yes, even though you’re just transcribing what he or she is saying, sometimes you will need to understand what is being said to type it up right.

You will also probably enjoy having a medical phrase book. This handy little creature will allow you to figure out what the doctor is saying when you only understand a couple words in a phrase. Sometimes you can look up the phrase and suddenly all the words can be understood.

Finally, if you are transcribing in any specialties, get appropriate reference books for them.

Quality matters in your medical transcription reference materials. Companies such as Stedman and Dorland make excellent reference materials.

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Books You'll Need as a Medical Transcriptionist

Resources and Tools for Medical Transcriptionists

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