According to the current edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook, Medical Transcription is among the ten fastest growing occupations in the U.S. A Medical Transcriptionist (MT) often works for hospitals, outpatient clinics, physician offices, national transcription services, or other medical offices. An MT listens to dictated recordings made by physicians and other healthcare professionals and transcribes them, creating medical reports that eventually become part of patients' permanent files.

Students seeking a career as a medical transcriptionist should have excellent editing and proofreading skills. Students should have a basic understanding of a word-processing program, to include being proficient at keyboarding, creating documents, e-mailing, and printing. (See prerequisites below.) Students in the Medical Transcription program gain the ability to transcribe medical reports, learning the skills they need to obtain an entry-level position as a medical transcriptionist.

This recently revised and revamped program has been designed to provide students with a beginning knowledge of the transcription of medical records. Included are ten inpatient case studies, ten inpatient reports that can be used as tests or as extra assignments, 25 outpatient reports, and ten outpatient reports that can be used as tests or as extra assignments. Each of these reports has been taken from hospital medical records. The reports utilized include history and physical examinations, radiology reports, operative procedures, pathology reports, consultations, discharge summaries, a death summary, an autopsy report, and correspondence. Reports are digitally recorded to be transcribed by the student. Different regional accents and background noises, which duplicate real-life situations, are used in the recorded dictation, the speed of which picks up as the student goes forward through the course. Transcription times will vary, depending on the length of the case study and the students' keyboarding skills, command of the English language, and knowledge of human anatomy and medical terminology.

The Medical Transcription + Medical Terminology program will give students both the complete Medical Transcription program plus a 60 hour Medical Terminology course!

The Medical Terminology course provides 60 hours of terminology training in the following modules.

- Learning Medical Terminology
- The Body as a Whole
- The Integumentary System
- The Musculoskeletal System
- The Respiratory System
- The Cardiovascular System
- The Digestive System
- The Urinary System
- The Nervous System
- The Endocrine System
- The Sensory System
- The Hematic, Lymphatic, and Immune Systems
- The Female Reproductive System
- The Male Reproductive System

Upon registering, you are given an initial six months to complete the program. Should you need more time, you may request a 6-month extension at no additional charge.

Prerequisites: Students should have Microsoft Word installed on their computer. Students will also need to the following prerequisite skills:
The ability to create documents using Microsoft Word (any version). All reports submitted to the instructor for grading must be created using MS Word (MS Works, Corel Word Perfect or other word processing programs are NOT compatible).
Proficiency in keyboarding-accuracy is most important at first, but some jobs pay on production, so speed will become a factor.
E-mailing-a major route of communication between student, the facilitator, and GES.
Browsing the Internet-important for looking up information on medical terms, drugs, procedures, etc., when they cannot be found in your reference books.
Knowledge of English grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. When changing the spoken word to the written word, all these aspects of language become vital.
The ability to discern what is being said, and more importantly what is meant, even if the person dictating has accented speech.
The ability to comply with the student-led, self-motivating aspects of the Gatlin program-much more responsibility is placed on the student in an online course than in a classroom situation. For example, the student is responsible for reading and following all instructions.
Audience: The intended audience for this program includes individuals interested in gaining the education and skills necessary to enter the medical transcription field and/or those individuals interested in changing careers to become a medical transcriptionist.