FOR frustrated doctors and medical students eyeing a nursing career overseas, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo offered an alternative she says should keep them home.
“I’d like to make special mention to frustrated doctors, don’t leave medical school because medical transcription (is here),” Arroyo said at a roundtable discussion in Malacañang on Thursday.
The discussion focused on the CyberServices Corridor, one of the super regions Arroyo unveiled in her State of the Nation Address last July. Medical transcription is one of the services delivered by the CyberServices Corridor, which will run from Baguio in the north to Davao in Mindanao.
A growing number of doctors continue to study nursing and seek employment abroad, especially in the United States.
But Rainero Borja, chairman of the Business Process Association of the Philippines, said medical transcription offers lucrative salaries ranging from 12,000 to 50,000 pesos a month.
Contrary to commonly held notions, medical transcription does not offer only low-end service, Borja said.
For example, he said, transcriptionists are also needed in operating rooms to help doctors document the procedures. These are then included in patients’ records.
"That's why the transcription should be super accurate," Borja said. “So there are opportunities,” Arroyo said. “So those studying in medical schools shouldn’t lose heart.”
There are currently 50 medical transcription firms and 13 schools in the country. In 2005, estimated revenues from medical transcription reached 70 million US dollars.
