How MT Is Like Raising Kids
A little over a year ago, through a series of events I won't take the time to go into now, my wife Carol and I became the guardians of our grandson Quenton, who's 20 months old now. The past year has been quite an adventure, as you can imagine, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We both feel we're better equipped to be parents at this season of our lives after (hopefully) learning a thing or two the first time around. Also, since we're both still relatively young-46 for me and 43 for Carol-we still have (a little) energy left to help us keep up with a toddler.
It occurred to me recently that raising children and working as an MT have some commonalities (besides sometimes driving you bat-wacky, I mean). Here are three things I believe both medical transcription and parenting require to do well:
- Patience. Can't put too much emphasis on this one. Both MT and toddler-rearing require massive amounts of patience-not just with the toddler or the dictator, but with yourself as well. Just as it takes time for both toddlers and doctors to learn how to speak in coherent sentences, it also takes time to learn how to be a good MT or a good parent. We all want our kids to excel, to learn quickly, to get to that next developmental milestone. But every child has his or her own timetable, and you can only do so much to hurry that process along. Likewise, as a parent or an MT, it takes time and experience to develop the skills you need to do the job well. Some days you think you're really making progress, other days you wonder what in the world ever possessed you to tackle this impossible task. But if we can patiently hang in there, little by little things start to get better. The more we learn about parenting and transcription, the more we understand we'll never achieve perfection, but we don't stop trying.
- Self-Discipline. I believe this is one of the requirements of a good MT that prevents a lot of folks from excelling as transcriptionists, and the same is true of parenting. Being a good parent or a good MT means keeping your mind and emotions and tendencies under control. As parents, we don't get to do all the things we otherwise might do. Regardless of what personality type we happen to possess, raising children successfully requires that we become more well-rounded in our own approach to life so we can help our kids do the same. Sadly, this is one aspect of parenting that I fear doesn't get talked about enough. It's easy to become a parent in the biological sense, but raising children in a stable environment requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice and self-discipline. You can't be self-centered and be a good parent, in my humble opinion.
Likewise, excelling as an MT requires a high level of mental, emotional and physical discipline. Staying focused on what Dr. Mushmouth is saying is no easy task in itself, but throw in all the other distractions of modern living and the job gets even harder. Sometimes just forcing yourself to STAY IN THE CHAIR can be a monumental challenge, but that's what it takes to do this job well. This is certainly true even in an institutional setting, but self-discipline becomes even more crucial in a work-at-home environment.
- Consistency. Let's face it, medical transcription basically consists of doing the same things over and over and over, ad nauseum, ad infinitum. The really good MTs know the importance of consistency and figure out ways to deal with the monotony of repetition (think text expanders.) Being a successful MT means not cutting corners, always holding yourself to a high standard, never content to let a difficult word or phrase slide by "just this once."
When you stop and think about it, parenting is much the same. Especially at the toddler stage that our grandson Quenton is in right now, helping him learn boils down to repetition, repetition, and more repetition. We say and do the same things again and again in order to help him grasp the meaning of words. But how confused would he be if when we pointed to his shoe we said "shoe" one day and "butterfly" the next? Likewise, as we endeavor to help him learn how not to be a monster child, it's critical that we remain consistent in our expectations and responses. We can't tell him "No" today and "Well, okay" tomorrow and expect him to behave as he should. Does all this repetition get exhausting and mind-numbingly monotonous? Absolutely! But whether it's parenting or medical transcription, consistency is a crucial ingredient we simply can't do without.
There are no doubt countless other similarities between parenting and MT. Please feel free to comment and share any others you can think of.