This week we’re giving readers an insight into our other non-writing career, and so as I’ve recently gone back to work part-time to cover holidays and sickness, I’d like to give you a day in the life of a medical secretary.
The job has changed dramatically from when I first started 13 years ago. Now the system is totally electronic and we don’t have to deal with trollies full of patients’ notes, so here’s what I would have to do in a day:
- Check answerphone messages from the previous day and deal with those.
- Collect and open the day’s post and deal with each piece of correspondence.
- Collect patients’ folders from Medical Records who are attending your consultant’s clinic on that day. The folders just contain address labels in case the patient has a further appointment or procedure, and blank clinic headed notepaper for scanning after the consultant has written on it. In the past it would have been thick wedges of notes, but now these have all been scanned onto the hospital system.
- Take the trolley of patients’ folders to the clinic consultation room ready for the doctor.
- Finish audio typing the previous day’s clinic letters if these have not been done. In the past secretaries would have been using dictation machine tapes to type from, but now the doctors dictate straight onto the computer.
- Try and audio type fast enough in order to keep up with your consultant as they dictate the current day’s pile of letters! Sometimes during the day the doctor will stand over you and watch you type an urgent letter as they talk. Fun, fun, fun.
- According to the letters and any accompanying forms in the patient’s folder, make a further appointment for the patient or take a completed form to the Waiting List Office if the patient needs a procedure.
- Prepare to be interrupted several times in any half hour period while you’re typing away by the phone ringing. Deal with patient enquiries, which are usually about how much longer they have to wait for a procedure.
- Take the patients’ folders to the scanning room when you have finished typing the clinic letters and booking further appointments.
- Filing letters from the day’s post when the doctors have finished with them, or taking them to the scanning room if they should be filed in the patient’s notes.
- Photocopying.
Thankfully though, as I have a bank contract, I can work as and when I want to!
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rimpytoor said:
Love your blog! I’d love for you to check mine out! 😊
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Stevie Turner said:
Thanks. Will check your blog too.
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P. J. MacLayne said:
I work on an electronic medical health system. Think how much easier your day would be if that was all electronic! No records to cart to the rooms- there would be computers in the exam rooms and the doctors would access patient records from the PC. When you scanned information, it would be added to the patient’s chart. And if you had a doctor who wasn’t scared of computers. they could input much of their dictation themselves!
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Stevie Turner said:
Hi P.J. Yes, the system is all-electronic, but doctors write clinic notes down, which are not scanned by the secretaries, but are taken to the scanning room staff to do. There are computers in the clinic rooms, and doctors dictate straight into the system from there. We just need a thin folder for the current day’s notes, which are taken out once scanned and the folder filed in Medical Records until the patient attends again.
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aurorawatcherak said:
Reblogged this on aurorawatcherak.
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Stevie Turner said:
Thanks for the re-blog.
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aurorawatcherak said:
Wow, it sounds a lot like my day job.
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Stevie Turner said:
Are you a medical secretary too?
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aurorawatcherak said:
I used to be a psychiatric/social work administrator. Now I work in transportation. But, yeah, that reminded me a great deal of opening the psychiatrists’ office in the early days of my 15 years in social work/psychiatry. I’ve done lots of secretarial/administrative stuff.
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Stevie Turner said:
I’ve just gone back after a 3 year hiatus.
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aurorawatcherak said:
I remember how hard that was after spending two years at home with our daughter. It was definitely a lifestyle change.
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Stevie Turner said:
But now I only work when I want to, which is good.
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aurorawatcherak said:
That can be. I used to work as a floating temp for an agency. It was nice because I could arrange time off as I wanted it. Eventually, though the need to plan for retirement became evident. I didn’t want to trust my future to a Social Security system that was (even in the 90s) running out of money. Temping didn’t allow me to invest in my future. Having a regular job does … but I have less time and my schedule is set by someone else. I suspect when I do “retire” I’ll still have a side gig … maybe I’ll freelance for the local newspaper again. That was fun.
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Stevie Turner said:
I already receive a pension as I took early retirement back in 2014 – this will augment it nicely!
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Léa said:
Ah, your title may spark very different images for those of us who have read Jasper Fforde’s series titled Thursday Next where book hopping is very common but in a much different way…
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pjfiala said:
Sounds like a busy day. So often people aren’t aware of all the things that have to be done behind the scenes into the most common of jobs. Thank you for sharing!
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jenanita01 said:
I know technology is a wonderful thing and supposed to save us time, but looking at your day at work, it looks so full on and complicated. This was just one day?
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Stevie Turner said:
Yep, just one day. It became too stressful, especially with the phone ringing all the time. I’m happy to take a grade lower to not answer the phone, to work when I want to, and to not have all the stress.
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jenanita01 said:
Makes me very glad I am retired and can work at my own pace!
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jenanita01 said:
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
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Stevie Turner said:
Thanks for the re-blog!
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