Transcription Graduates In Limbo

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Health News

Wednesday, 08 February 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St John's - Medical transcription graduates have said they have yet to receive accreditation, four years after the start of the lauded government programme.

The training programme was offered through the American TRS Institute. The $10,000-per-student initiative was partly developed by the Government of Antigua & Barbuda, which covered 50 percent of the students’ costs via the Antigua & Barbuda Investment Authority (ABIA). One hundred students were enrolled.

The TRS Institute provided training using their AHDI-approved curriculum. Interfix, LLC provided the technology. TRS, however, is reportedly MIA.

According to Fitzroy Christian of the ABIA, from his records, everyone who passed the course received their certificates.

He said at the completion of each course, the students took a quality assurance exam, in the form of an internship programme before graduation.

This means that everyone who graduated would have successfully completed the programme, and therefore not receiving a certificate at the graduation ceremony was strange.

The certificates, Christian said, were issued and signed by TRS as the educator, and ABIA as local facilitators.

“All of those who successfully completed the course and the internship have gotten their certificates,” he said, adding that there was one exception last week when a student went into ABIA claiming not to have received a certificate even though she passed the course.

The student who spoke with this publication claimed to have been a part of the first batch of students who started the programme in 2008, and according to Christian, that class was the only one to have a formal graduation at Precision Center.

“It was supposed to last (if you took the day class) for nine months. What they told us was that at the end of the nine months, after we had graduated, we would have a job… we wouldn’t have to worry about that,” she said.

The guarantee of a job in a thriving industry led many students to quit their jobs, while others opted to work in the evenings.

“It is an intense course, so a lot of people quit their jobs because of that," she said. "I was one of the fortunate ones, in that I was able to go to work in the evening. It was really a challenge for me, but at the end of the day, I pulled through it."


Another student noted that several attempts to get in contact with the course provider had been unsuccessful, and there has been no word on when they will be certified and employed.

The programme covered topics such as medical style and grammar, medico-legal issues in healthcare, healthcare technologies, anatomy and physiology, human diseases processes, and even pharmacology.

An internship programme followed the courses, and required transcribing a minimum of 600 minutes of physician dictation. The students were said to have even had exposure to multiple medical specialties and work types a strategy aimed at providing a well-rounded experience.

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