Medical Transcription is the process of interpreting and transcribing the dictation made by doctors or other health care professionals regarding patient status, treatment procedures, diagnoses, prognoses, etc. With medical transcription of dictated data from physicians,

the medical transcriptionist may also edit the text that is produced by voice recognition software. Medical Transcription is the translating of dictations made by a doctor. As a result, it requires an extensive knowledge of medical, pharmacological and anatomical terms.

In the past medical transcriptionists would listen to dictations and type it themselves, but with the dawn of technology and voice recognition software, this has become unnecessary and today, for the most part, the medical transcriptionist merely edits the output of the software.

However, the editing process can range from a few corrections to major changes because voice recognition software still hasn't been perfected and probably never will be due to the wide variety of speech variations and dictating habits of health care professionals. Aside from medical knowledge, a quality transcription requires a transcriptionist to have excellent listening skills.