Richland Community College offers a certificate program in medical transcription that requires students to take six courses. These courses include medical terminology, medical office anatomy, medical transcription 1, pharmacology terminology, medical transcription 2 and interpreting health care records. The program should be taken in three semesters with the courses in the following sequence: medical terminology for the first semester; medical office anatomy, pharmacology terminology and medical transcription 1 for the second semester; and for the third semester, medical transcription 2 and interpreting health care records.
Everett Community College offers a full-time medical transcription program that is designed to be completed in three quarters on a full-time schedule in an online environment. Students must have a typing speed of at least 45 words per minute, intermediate computer skills and knowledge of Microsoft Word. If students do not have these skills, they are required to take two courses before beginning in the medical transcription program--beginning keyboard and keyboarding for speed and accuracy. Once in the program, required courses include medical records and the medical transcriptionist, language of medical transcription, grammar essentials for MTs, speech recognition for MTs and editing and proofreading for MTs.
St. Louis Community College offers a medical transcription program that leads to a Certificate of Proficiency. This program requires students to take 42 credits; the courses include human body systems, medical terminology, health information management technology, medical transcription, keyboarding and formatting, proofreading and editing skills, information systems for business and basic principles of disease.
Gateway Community College offers medical transcription courses that include medical transcription applications, which teaches students how to enter and format medical reports; and pharmacology for medical transcriptionists, which focuses on the standards, sources of drugs as well as the prescription symbols and abbreviations. Some of the medical transcription courses are geared towards specific job positions and their locations. These courses include physician's office transcription, medical-surgical transcription, diagnostic therapeutic transcription, advanced office transcription, advanced surgical transcription and advanced diagnostic transcription. Other courses provide students with basic knowledge that is needed in this field of study, such as medical terminology, pathophysiology and dictation by non-native speakers.