Hope
It's been a little longer than usual since my last post, due to a major cross-country move my family and I have just completed, from Yuma, Arizona to Columbia, Missouri. My wife Carol and our 20-month-old grandson Quenton who lives with us made the trip by airplane a couple of weeks before I followed in a rental truck with our car on a tow dolly trailing obediently--for the most part--behind. (I did discover that you can't back up with the car on the dolly.) It's right at 1600 miles from Yuma to Columbia. The first day I drove to Prescott, AZ--a little over 200 miles--to spend the night with my grandmother, my last living grandparent. The next morning I drove north to I-40 and then headed east. I stayed on the interstate until Tucumcari, NM, where I left the beaten track and took U.S. 54, which cuts through a small corner of Texas and a slice of Oklahoma before crossing into Kansas. This route saved a few miles, though probably not much time, but it did give me an opportunity to see a lot of America's heartland up close and personal.
As I traveled through Kiowa County, KS, I passed through a small town named Greensburg (home of the world's largest hand-dug well). Coming into town I noticed a sign with the name of the town and something along the lines of "Rebuilding Together." I confess I didn't pay that much attention until I got further into town and started noticing all the empty lots and temporary buildings and new construction going on. It dawned on me that something really bad must have happened here.
It was only after I reached Columbia and got Internet access that I was able to do a little research on Greensburg, KS.
According to Wikipedia, on May 4, 2007, Greensburg (population 1,574 in 2000) was hit by an EF5 tornado which was estimated to be 1.7 miles wide and which traveled on the ground for nearly 22 miles. The National Weather Service estimated that the tornado's wind speeds reached 205 mph. Ninety-five percent of the town was confirmed to be destroyed, the remaining 5 percent badly damaged, and 11 people were killed. Thankfully, warning sirens sounded 20 minutes before the tornado struck, or many more lives would no doubt have been lost.
After the tornado, the town council voted to rebuild Greensburg-literally--as a "green" city, with the help of a nonprofit organization, Greensburg GreenTown, formed specifically for this purpose.
After seeing Greensburg firsthand and learning more about the devastating experience the town has gone through and its determination to rebuild, I've been thinking about our nation in general and the MT field in particular in these uncertain economic times. Quite frankly I don't know what the current financial crisis is ultimately going to mean to the working class as a whole or to medical transcriptionists specifically. I'm sure there have already been some folks whose lives have been directly impacted by these bank failures and the drying up of credit, but I don't know if it's going to be the economic equivalent of the Greensburg tornado on a large scale; I pray that it won't be. But one thing Americans in general and MTs in particular have proven time and time again is that we know how to rise to the occasion. When you stop and think about it, the history of the medical transcription profession has basically been a story of constant change, and not always what we'd consider good change. But in spite of all the dire predictions about how MT was going to disappear because of speech recognition or EMRs or offshore outsourcing or whatever, lo and behold, we're still here.
Yes, there have been some major challenges, and there are certainly those in our field who are struggling financially due to declining compensation. But there are a lot of unsung success stories as well, folks who have worked hard to hone their skills, learned to make technology work for them instead of against them, and are not just surviving but are thriving as medical transcriptionists.
I for one am inspired by the story of Greensburg, Kansas, and am more determined than ever to meet the challenges of this brave new world of health care documentation head on. I still believe that the hard-working people who are the backbone of the MT industry are a precious resource our health care system will always need, regardless of the whirlwinds of technology or economic uncertainty which may come our way. Individually and collectively, we can and do make an important difference in the quality of health care delivery in this country, and I personally think that's something worth fighting for.