Expert: Leigh Ishikawa - 11/29/2007

Question
Hi Leigh

I wasn't really sure who to talk to on here, but decided on you, so I hope you can answer my question. I am thinking about taking a medical transcription course in Jan. Its online because they don't offer it in the college. The thing that concerns me is, I don't know how long businesses would need medical transcribers. I know that they have machines that can type up what you say, so I wonder how long medical transcribers would be in demand. I don't want to take this course and find out that businesses don't need medical transcribers. What do you think? Do you think their will always be a need for transcribers? Do you think this would be a waste of my time and money?  
Thank You.
Vanessa

Answer
Hi Vanessa,

This is out of my expertise as I am not familiar with Medical industries.  But I'll answer as much as I can.

In general, I believe, any job that can be automated will eventually be automated.  Jobs that can be automated are tasks that do not require an individual to be physically present.  That said, it may take 5 years, or 50 years for certain industries to change.  Processors, disks, and memory are cheap and I can only imagine that given time, someone will perfect voice recognition at the professional level.  If you haven't looked at a cell phone, many of them now include voice recognition and it's quite good.  That's on a small processor with very limited memory and no disk space.

Keep in mind that I do not think any job is secure.  Therefore, any job that you can attain financial gain for next several years would be good.  Ideally, you want to get into an industry in a stage where your skill sets can be leveraged down the line.  For example, learning certain technology where if off-shoring happens, you are one of the people who are leading a group of people, rather then the person who's job is eliminated.

It's difficult to really predict whether a job is good.  I recently replied to someone that given a choice between specific certificate vs. a generic college degree, I would take the latter without any hesitation.  That is what I would say to you as well.  It is amazing, during tough economy, how people get filtered out purely based on the level of education and where they were educated.  If you do not have a bachelor's degree, I would recommend that you do get it.

I would recommend google for medical career forums, and approach people who work in a medical field and ask them if they know someone in the field.  You must know one person who is a doctor or nurse and can help you get in touch with someone in that field.  If not, try a temp agency and ask how much they pay and how much demand there is for someone with these skill sets and whether the demand is going up or down.

Sorry that I couldn't be of much help.  Good Luck,

Leigh