First Impression Working as Medical Transcriptionist in a Saudi Hospital

I was excited when I arrived in Saudi Arabia to work as Medical Transcriptionist. It was somehow a new endveour because I will be starting to work in a hospital set up. Normally, medical transcriptionist in the Philippines works in an office setting. Audio files are coming from an outsourcing company in the United States.

I was being optimistic even if I don’t know what will be the workflow. Until the first day of my work, I was surprised by comments of fellow medical transcriptionists coming from India and South Africa. They were very supportive of me but I get a little bit confused that it seems they do not like their job in Saudi Arabia.

The first day of my work was a bit of surprise. It was a little bad feeling knowing there were a lot of unforeseen things that were very diverse from what I got used to be working as medical transcriptionist in the Philippines.

• First, it is still common to the hospital doing the text-to-text transcription. I had a chance to know this from other medical transcriptionist in various hospitals in the Kingdom through my personal blog. You need to learn how doctor’s write and be able to read them. Everybody knows what a doctor’s hand writing would look like.


• And secondly, the audio-to-text transcription is rarely used. And these hospitals still use microtapes and recorders. Some doctors they bring themselves the recorded report in microtape to the transcription department.

These all were I experienced when I worked as a medical records transcriptionist in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 2007 to 2009. Looking back, I then realized that these were good experiences I attained. Having learned that there are still different workflows that a medical transcriptionist can experience.