Style Guide and Reference

The Medical Transcription Desk (MT Desk) Style Guide and Reference is a style guide for medical transcriptionists, healthcare documentation specialists and health information managers. On completion, this wiki style guide will be compatible with the current accepted medical transcription style guide but will be dynamically updated, incorporate the most recent information, pictures and illustrations, and comments from the medical transcription and health information community.

Not sure how it works? Go to How to use the MT Desk Style Guide and Reference and please be sure to search the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) if you have questions.

Medical Transcription Forums

What you're looking for...

• The forums formerly known as MT Chat
• Discussion forums where medical transcriptionists share ideas
• Networking with other medical transcriptionists

Grammar, Usage and Style

What you're looking for...

• How to write abbreviations and acronyms
• Abbreviating Latin expressions
• Basic guidelines for symbols
• Rules for capitalization
• Grammar
  • Sentence structure
  • Nouns and proper nouns
  • Plurals and possessives
  • Compound words
• How to write numbers
• Basic rules for percentages, proportions, ratios and ranges
• Measurements and quantities
• Punctuation

Medical Terminology

What you're looking for...

• Classifications
  • Classification of burns
  • Cancer classifications, staging and grading
  • Obstetric classifications
  • Orthopaedic classifications
• Laboratory values
• Pharmacology
  • Drug dosages
  • Writing drug names
  • Controlled substance schedules
  • Street slang and illicit drug references
  • Chemical nomenclature
• Hematology and oncology
  • Blood groups and types
  • Clotting factors and variants
  • Complement factors
• Cardiology
  • Heart sounds and murmurs
  • Pacemaker codes and cardioversion/defibrillation
  • Phonocardiographic tracings
• Diagnostic studies
  • Cardiology laboratory tests, echocardiograms and electrocardiograms
• Surgical equipment and terms
• Acronyms used in healthcare
• Medical terminology word lists
• Prescription and OTC drug lists
  • New drug lists
• Glossary of terms
• ... and a lot more!

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Medical Transcription Reference Directory

What you're looking for...

• Medical information websites
• Websites that help medical transcriptionists
• Reference and research for medical terminology

Editing and Proofreading

What you're looking for...

• Proofreading guidelines
• Proofreading standards
• ...and more

Common Errors

What you're looking for...

• Sound-Alike? Words
• Stumper Terms

Sample Reports

What you're looking for...

• Sample operative reports
• Sample clinic reports
• Sample specialty reports

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