Career Step (www.careerstep.com) offers a high quality training course in medical transcription in both online or text book formats. The course is very complete and comprehensive and designed to prepare its graduates for every aspect of medical transcription employment. Career Step’s graduates are often considered as preferred hires by the medical transcription industry leaders, such as Spheris (www.spheris.com) and MedQuist (www.medquist.com), as well as many others.
In 2004, I made the decision to enroll in a medical transcription course. I researched many of the available courses online and decided to enroll with Career Step, LLC, at www.careerstep.com/. This course is one of the top recommended courses on the American Association for Medical Transcription (AAMT) website www.aamt.org/scriptcontent/mt approved.cfm. I had also talked to several other MTs (medical transcriptionists) who had graduated from Career Step – to get their feedback on the course. They all had high praise for Career Step.
Career Step has been offering high quality MT training since 1992. This comprehensive course is competency-based and designed to prepare its graduates to successfully find employment with top-notch employers. Their course covers all medical specialties, word building, medical terminology, pronunciation, and all aspects of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and their copyrighted Keyboard Kinetics training system. The online course integrates sound files, virtual classroom, virtual library, discussion forum, and instant feedback on exercises and exams.
The cost of the Career Step course, as of this publication, is as follows: Gold Level – $1320; Platinum Level – $1560. The main difference is with the Platinum Level you get the benefits of a student referral program and reference materials for starting your own transcription business. The enrollment fee also includes a PC WAV foot pedal and transcription software with either program.
Since I was already employed full-time as a shopping mall property manager, with extreme seasonal time commitments, this online course was a perfect flexible fit for me. Normally, the course could be completed in a year or less. However, because of my time restrictions, I had to take several extensions. Although it took me 2-1/2 years, I finally completed and graduated from Career Step with high honors. My persistence truly paid off!
To take an online course, you need to be self-disciplined and stay focused on your goal of graduation. Career Step also offers a wonderful student networking opportunity to help their students in this area, via forums and moderated chats. I found these resources to be invaluable in getting through the course and also later when I started my job search. The phrase, “Career Step Students Rock the World,” has been adopted by the students, and I found this phrase to be very fitting! The graduating students were very helpful in offering advice in preparing for the final exam and also offering their experience in the job application process. Career Step’s experienced student support staff are people that have taken the course and/or have worked as MTs. They work closely with the students to answer any questions about the course content. They also have a very helpful technical support staff, available six days a week. These staff people are available by email, fax, or toll-free phone calls.
Upon successful completion of the Career Step course, graduates can feel assured that they have been well trained to become working medical transcriptionists. They had transcribed over 650 actual medical reports, had accumulated a mountain of ready-to-use reference materials to use on the job, and most importantly, have gained the self-confidence needed to be a successful MT.
I can attest to that, and I highly recommend Career Step to anyone who is considering a highly rewarding and self-satisfying career in medical transcription!
If you have any questions about Career Step or the medical transcription course, please contact me.
