Ok. I now feel so incredibly stupid. I've been doing MT for about 5-6 years now. No formal training, just learning from docs and other MTs. I feel I am a fairly intelligent person, but this week something just slapped me in the head. I got a book "Saving Keystrokes" because I thought it would help me set up my shortcuts better. Now, I will say that my QA is 98-100% every time and some days I can type maybe 200 lph, but not very consistently. I've been trying to see where my time goes and I have shaved a little off, but not enough to make a drastic improvement. Ok, now for the realization. It never really occured to me to put everyday phrases in to be expanded. Even hospital names, or other things that I type pretty often. It simply never hit me, until I was browsing through the book and I was like "WOW!!!!" that's one of my problems! I read somewhere, maybe here, that to be efficient and really use the expander program you should have thousands of expanders. I have less than 300 and probably don't use all of them.

I just found this site less than a year ago and have gotten some really good tips, but I still never really got into all of the expansions that are posted here. Needless to say, I'll be spending some quality time with my expander program. This morning, in one report I added probably 6 shortcuts, just because I'm listening for them now.

I guess the moral of the story is, get a good MT education, not only for the medical terminology, but also for the productivity side as well.

Thanks for letting me ramble...... **walking away with head bowed down in utter amazement at my own stupidity!!!!**

LOL, tnypin, you sound so amazed at yourself, and I'm glad this has struck you, but I don't think you're terribly alone in that mind-set, really. So many MTs pay great attention to shortcuts for medical words and phrases, but not the every day ones, as has been said here more than once. I'd been an MT for longer than you before I truly wised up. I'd thought I was pretty savvy until I got Jon Knowles' ABCZ - that's what made it hit me over the head, because I saw all the built-in ones he had in there, and it made me do a big ole' WOW! Since then, though, there's been no turning back!

Thanks Harrie. Now more things on here make sense to me. It's comforting to know I'm not alone, but doesn't make me feel any less stupid. I mostly lurk on this board and MTChat and am in awe of the people that post such helpful things. One day maybe I can help others the way others have helped me. After all, that's what it's all about, huh?

Thanks again.

If you are lucky and have a limited doc pool, think in terms of common phrases too. Dr. Fang always dictating a certain procedure the same way? Expand the whole thing, or a paragraph, or just whole sentences.

I do a lot of mammograms. Scattered fibroglandular densities is a 6-letter short. "The breast parenchyma has a homogeneously dense breast tissue pattern which may reduce the sensitivity of mammography in this patient" is left on all of the templates (however each of the three docs I have who dictate mammograms phrase it- and each doc has a template). Not having to type that all the time is a huge saving.

I only now have enough samples to wade through and correlate more types of dictations - and hopefully that will speed me up when I look for more sentences and phrases.

Have many different docs but the same procedures? Look for all the variants on a theme: in a sterile fashion, in the usual sterile fashion, in a sterile manner, etc, and make shorts for all of them. (iasf, itusf, iasm, respectively)

Nice post, Georg!

Wow, georg! Great info! I have 3 different accounts with several docs. It's all clinic dictation though so now I'm trying to find common phrases to expand. I look forward to working now so I can make new expanders. Crazy, huh?

I just have to jump in here and say so how excited I am. I have been working with a company that has the expander built into the program. It is on their computer, it is a DOS program, and it is not connected to the internet. In other words, I could not just "transfer" all of this great information and the lists into my expander. I have recently decided to work for a new company, and I will be able to use my Instant Text once again. Last night I was able to save my expander from Medrite on the other computer and save it into notepad on mine. Granted, I am having to go through every entry and put an "=" sign in, which actually doesn't take too long, and then it imports right into IT. How cool is that!!! (and of course I get this information from this board) I am so excited to be able to start participating on this board. It truly is a great place here. Just wanted to jump in and say that. Quite frankly, I am thrilled but to tell the family or friends what I am doing is like talking to them in Russian and I just had to tell somebody!!! LOL!

Thanks again!
Bethanne

Ha! Bethanne, that was a great post! Had to laugh about how it is discussing it with family and friends who aren't MTs. Just not the same, eh?!

That's fantastic that you got your Medrite entries saved. Whew, there's the main thing! And congrats on your new job!

I think you might be interested in this thread , too. It's so amazing what you can do. Now, if your tried and true abbreviations are very unique you'll want them the same as they are now, of course, but you may want to experiment. If you do, just be sure you have a backup copy of your text file as it is originally somewhere, just in case.

Also, I saw some Medrite threads that could be pertinent for you. I actually have no idea, I don't know Medrite or anything about it. But just in case, see this IT thread

I am not trying to discourage you from manually adding the shorts at all, by the way. Just throwing more stuff at you, as I'm wont to do.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!

I swear I feel like a kid with a new toy!! Just like I feel when I get new reference books (and electronic ones) except better because I get to play with this one and use it more. I know, I need to get a life! HA!!

You all have a great weekend. I am going to play with my IT!

Bethanne

Don't forget that you can use the Search and Replace feature in Word to add the = to your entries so you don't have to manually change every entry. This is most useful if you have special short forms that you want to keep.

I don't know the format of your list, but just look for a certain pattern that you can search for and replace with the "=" (it may help to show the formatting marks in Word).

Good luck and happy experimenting! I know what you mean about people here understanding! My friends and family think I'm nuts when these kinds of topics come up (yeah, well... maybe they're right, but....) !

-sono_io

Oh sono, aren't you the best! First off, great tip, naturally, and secondly, after seeing it, I realize that I misread Bethanne's post, thinking she did not have her shorts at all! I sure am glad there are folks here to watch me, crikey!

Thank you! I'm sure Bethanne will say the same!

Now, as for your sanity, or Bethanne's needing to get a life - well, let's face it, all we MTs understand, anyway. So we won't think about whether we're actually sane or whether we actually need to get a life, will we?

Right, Harrie! Yes - sometimes denial IS the best policy! (Plus, insanity loves company!)

P.S. - Maybe it was me who misunderstood her. Hopefully she'll report back!

-sono_io

Reporting back!! I have the list actually in notepad. It has the short cut--- a lot of spaces ---- then the expansion. I could cut and paste and put it into word but not sure what to put in to make it replace, as it is just spaces. Any ideas? Thanks so much for your help on this.

Bethanne


TRES tracheoesophageal
TRIG triglycerides
TRIPAK TRI-PAK
TRMU trapezius muscle
TRO to rule out
TROP troponin
TROS tracheostomy
TRPO Trendelenburg position
TS T-sheet
TSP teaspoon
TSPS teaspoons
TSRION ten system review is othewise negative
TST Thallium stress test
TT to the


HMMMM For some reason I cannot get my examples to show the spaces in between the short cut and the expansion. Sorry!

That's great Bethanne! I know how you feel. I've been so excited to work the past few days so I can create more expansions! It's amazing how many I hear now that I'm actually listening for them!

I can't help with your dilemma, but I'm sure someone here can. Good luck with it and have fun.

Can you go to Tools>Options>View tab, then put a check mark in the "spaces" box, and report how many spaces is in between the short and the phrase? Or, attach a document with just a few samples? And, are you going to want to keep all your shorts capitalized?

Bethanne,
Here's one option - though as always, there are more than one way! And please, PLEASE try this on a 2nd copy of your list - not the original.

In Word, do a search for this
<([A-Z]{2,})> {2,}(*)^13

and replace with this
\1 = \2^13

It looks like Greek, I know, but I tried it on your sample list and it worked. This assumes that each line of text is followed by a paragraph mark (if they are line breaks instead, change the ^13 to ^l. Be sure you have "use wildcards" checked off in the search options.

Hopefully it will work for you! Let us know!

-sono_io

Oh, that sono_io
So glad she's friend and not foe
And the reason, I vow, is that she's a regular Phil Rabichow
No Find and Replace formula is a mystery to she
Sono will figure it out and fill you with glee!


PS: No one is allowed to whack me, I own this place!

Thanks so much tntypin! Good luck to you with your new-found world!! It's fun isn't it?

I will certainly try all these things over the weekend and see what happens. I will be sure to let you know. As far as the caps, that is how it transferred over, but it does not seem to be affecting IT when I type in my shorts in lower case in a document. I will definitely have to play with it some more though!!

Thanks for all of your help!

Bethanne

You're exactly right, Bethanne - when you do your formulas import, it's going to put the shorts in lower case anyway, so it does not matter.

Yes, we'll look forward to it. I'd forget about my post to show spaces. I was going to use that to help formulate the Find and Replace procedure, but likely sono's procedure will work for you. Don't waste time, just go for that!