Do You Smell It?

Since the addition of more DDS work to our repertoire, we have been working like slaves, but what else is new?  I work now harder it seems than I ever did but I still have less, something about that just ain't right, but this is not about the economic situation of yours truly.   In this job of mine, I type disability medical and psychological exams/reports for the state of West Virginia, the state of South Carolina, and our latest addition of Colorado state.

I much prefer the medical reports to the psychological ones, but occasionally they are worth a good storyline.  All in all, most of the doctors are fairly easy to decipher, and even some of the heavily accented people are not too bad.  What really irks me is a doctor who has no format whatsoever, jumps around without no real logic and just rambles, especially in a psychological report.

Some of these reports can be quite long and there is sometimes testing involved, such as intellectual testing.  Other stuff in the psychiatric evaluations may include the interpretation of proverbs, asking them to mentally count backwards by serial 3's or 7's, spell a word backwards, assess their general fund of knowledge by giving the similarities between objects, etc, or to see if they know what day of the week, month, year, who is the President, stuff like that...in other words to see if their lights are on and somebody actually is home. 

General rule of thumb with transcription is ... if it takes the doctor 30 minutes to speak it, it is going to take you twice as long if not closer to 3x as long to type it.  Some are very fast talkers too, and there are those also who can slur quite briskly, adding agitation onto one's day.  Oftentimes I get bored and my mind goes off somewhere else and I type something that to me doesn't even make any sense, or I type what I think I hear (which in some cases is a slur) and I think to myself, "Did he really say that?" and on those occasions I should, could, or might listen again.  Sometimes they do say stupid stuff.

Other times it can go something like this...

Take for instance this report I was typing today.   Obviously the psychiatric doctor or Ph.D.  was questioning this patient to determine his judgment and reasoning skills giving him certain scenarios. 

The doctor states, if the claimant found an envelope in the street that was sealed, addressed and had a new stamp on it, he indicated he would “mail it.” Okay, nothing abnormal about that, is there?  What I thought was a little abnormal was the doctor making a judgment about a patient who had driven himself to the appointment stating that his eyes remained half closed throughout, and stating he couldn't believe the wife hadn't driven and that "I wouldn't want him (talking about the patient) to drive me anywhere."  He also made reference to the fact that the patient was on heavy doses of narcotic pain meds and implying of course that his mental alertness was questionable.  Still, he had no right to pass his own judgment but since he said it, I typed it, and off the report went!  Perhaps DDS will have a little chat with this doctor telling him that his comments would best be left to himself and not part of a dictated exam?!

Yes, this particular doctor was a thorn in my side for three whole reports (believe me that was enough!).  He was one of those fast talking, slurry-assed, overeducated wordy not to mention pompous assed psyche dictators who rambled; a big pain in the ass.   I complained about his lack of structure right away!!!  So therefore tomorrow I may have to do this particular dictator all day long just because the squeaky wheel could get the grease, right?

We'll see...It would be a punishment worse than death!

Okay so it's been a long day and I'm distracted, ... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, back to the story...

So after the remark about the envelope question, this doctor is obviously still addressing this patient's judgment and he states, if the claimant was the first in a crowded movie theater to see smoke and fire, he indicated he would “holler and perspire a lot.”

Say what? huh? that ain't right...is it?

I just about let that one slide ... LOL ... it was after 2 p.m. and my mind was shooting blanks at this point listening to slur ass dictate, but being the duty-bound worker I am and doing this for 10 years I knew something was "fishy" and I listened to it again. 

I hear the dictator state pretty plain actually the second time around..."if the claimant was the first in a crowded movie theater to see smoke and fire, he indicated he would "holler and push the fire alarm."

but how on earth did I come up with "perspire a  lot?"

the world may never care, but I'm glad to catch that big stinky fish!!!!

What a long ass day.  I am definitely pussy whipped.  Stroke me, pleaseeeee!