Batteries for labor and delivery

Blooper seen in a document today:

The patient was having A cells and D cells.

I've been contemplating lately what it is that makes an MT want to guess and leave complete nonsense in a report rather than leaving a blank. What's the psychology behind this? I remember how stupid I felt as a newbie, not knowing something I should have known. Back when I started in the Cavewoman Days, though, there was no such thing as QA for the 10-MT service I worked with, at least in the beginning. So maybe I felt like no one was going to see it anyway--no big whoop, right? They definitely would see big holes in the reports! Just fill it in and no one will be the wiser! I don't think patient care was on my mind. After spending 10 years as an LVN, I should have known better. I would never have guessed at a medication dosage at a patient's bedside or "guesstimate" what time I last changed his IV bag.

During the time I worked for this MTSO, the owner had a friend who was in court reporting and wanted to work in transcription, so she asked me to teach her friend MT through our local business college. Over the course of a summer, I gave her a crash course in MT, using an HPI quick-learn program available at that time. Thankfully she was very bright and learned quickly. But the day I learned this court reporter turned MT (thanks to me!) was going to be QA'ing MY work (mine!! the EXPERT!! the DIVA of transcription!), AND I still was not going to get a raise after 3 years, I quit.

This pseudo-QA person (I really did have a 'tude) took it upon herself to print out my work and highlight errors, then tucked the printed reports into the Ziploc bag that held my daily tapes. (We used to pick these up at a PO box, take them home and transcribe, then return them the next day for more.) I was way too full of myself to even look at her corrections.

At least I don't guess anymore.