Advances in the health care system documentation technology show a need for medical transcriptionists. Medical transcription is one of the fastest growing occupations in the USA. Transcriptionists work for hospitals, physicians and other medical offices. They listen to the dictated records made by health care professional and transcribe them into medical records, which eventually become patient’s permanent file.

Formal education is not really a requirement to be a medical transcriptionist; however, medical facilities prefer to hire people who have completed a certified course in medical transcription. These courses prepare people to start a new career as medical transcriptionist. These courses are available in both distant education and traditional schooling. Online training courses are especially useful for those who are already employed or for work from home mothers. These courses can be completed in their free time being anywhere in the world. This is a self-paced program, so one can finish it very fast or go slow as his/her time permits. Continuing education is also available for those who are already in this field to keep up with the current information.

Transcription job requires strong English grammar, punctuations and strong knowledge of medical terminologies. Medical transcription courses help to achieve these skills and help to succeed a transcriptionist in his career. The courses are offered in two methods: one year program for a certificate, two year program for associate degree. These courses include anatomy, physiology, medical terminologies, pharmacology, common diseases and diagnostic procedures. Students of these courses gain real-life transcription and understanding and achieve competency to work as a transcriptionist. Even though most of the transcription companies do not hire people without experience, the learning center which has some relationship with the transcription companies, help to get a placement in those companies.

Unlike college, many of the online courses do not provide with financial aid and flexible payment arrangements. But some of the online training institutes did understand the plight of the students and do give this facility, so that whatever the budget is, students can start their training at the earliest.

Medical transcriptionists should have a good keyboarding, proof-reading, word processing and editing skills. Training institutes aim at these aspects as well to produce skilled transcriptionists.

People who want to enroll in the medical transcription course should make sure that the course is legitimate. That means it should follow the AHDI (Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity) guidelines.

Even though there is a great degree of debate on which learning programs produce the best medical transcriptionist, a highly knowledgeable medical transcriptionist who can accurately transcribe multiple documents in a reasonable time is highly preferred.