My father used to tell me a Physician’s Assistant (PA) is a doctor with a smaller garage. Physician’s assistants are just that, assistants to physicians. As a PA I expect to be working with doctors, nurses, nurse’s assistants, and therapists. On this committee I also expect to work with the board directors, board members, and possibly medical record transcribers. As a physician’s assistant working out of a chiropractor’s office I expect to see lots of mistakes, especially in medical notes and how terminology is written. Usually the offices are self-made practices and don’t have to follow the same rules and deadlines for medical transcribing and billing as hospitals do.
Most medical personnel take a medical terminology class. Not many of them double check their spelling of medical terms when writing notes. Notes are important if the patient is seen by another doctor, and it by chance could lead to wrong treatment, wrong diagnosis, and then millions of dollars in a malpractice suits. Akinesia, Bradykinesia, and Apraxia; if any of those terms are spouted out quickly to a nurse’s assistant who’s already trying to keep up with a dozen other medical terms the doctor just said is very likely to become confused and just write the word as it sounds. The medical note is later seen and apraxia is written aphasia and now the patient has speech problems, instead of the inability to execute voluntary motor movements.
There are over 200,000 medical abbreviations. I believe getting rid of the issue is easier said than done. One way to get around the issue is to just write the abbreviation out. Transient Ischemic Attack, TIA. TIA also stands for Thrombosis-Inducing Activity, T-cell intracellular antigen, Trypsin Inhibitory Activity, and Tumor-Induced Angiogenesis. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) also means Atypical Lacunar Syndrome, Advanced Life Support, Acute Leukemias. Lumbar Puncture or an LP also stands for Low Pressure, Lingua Plicata and about 20 other things. Most...