Vera Pyle one of the Queens of Medical Transcription
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“To all those who love words,” Vera Pyle.
Vera Pyle is regarded as one of the Queens of Medical Transcription. She was one of the original founders of our profession as we know it today. In my opinion, nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm. Vera Pyle and future members of this page have that priceless quality.
As Vera said in her introduction, “to all those who love words”; with Vera there is no need to connect the dots, because they over lap and create her professional legacy. Most of us work so hard just to be competent! We all know how many hours are in a day. Somehow she found the time and energy to write books, speak at seminars, help found AAMT and generally touch so many MTs. She was known as a very generous person and a natural story teller.
She worked as a transcriptionist and supervisor for 30 years; an educator for 8 years. She was supervisor of medical transcription for the California Medical Center in San Francisco. She taught transcription and terminology at the City College of San Francisco.
Vera spent 20 years researching and finding new words for her books “Current Medical Terminology”. The book is now in its’ 11th edition and is published by Vera’s long-time friend and colleague Sally Crenshaw Pitman of Health Professions Institute. The first edition was published in 1985. Vera and Sally were founding members of AAMT. Sally Crenshaw Pitman is another icon in our profession.
Some of the new words in the 11th Edition published by Health Professions Institute: Anvil dunk, bird-beak sign, black knee prosthesis, rendezvous laparoendoscopic- come on! You have to love them! You can buy the 11th Edition in electronic format at HPI.com.
Linda Andrews, CMT wrote, “At one time Ms. Pyle's vaunted publication, “the silver book”, was indispensible to transcriptionists. This frequently updated book was a collection of new terms, products, and procedures that served as an adjunct and update to the more mundane and typical word books, providing a clearinghouse of sorts to the more experienced transcriptionist who needed something (more)……”
I consider myself fortunate to have had a couple of warm and informative conversations with Vera in 1995-96. We discussed the new age of electronic medical records. At the time she was deeply involved in studying the merits of voice recognition vs “code or physician markup cards”. She didn’t think that physicians and nurses wanted a computer in each patient’s room. She was not too keen on voice recognition. However, she said “a computer based patient record is in our future. The direction it takes is a bit of a mystery at this point”. She was still on the cutting edge.
Some quotes from Vera
I can see the writing on the wall and it is misspelled
I myself would rather have a dozen new medical words, researched and defined, than a five-pound box of chocolates. And I bet you would too
How far should we go in trying to verify a word? One can spend hours researching a word…..
What I am finding in medical word research is that nothing is gospel, nothing is graven on the tablet. It just depends on which tablet you check. This shakes your confidence because how can you be as perfect as humanly possible when there are so many chances for error
All but the cynics admire success if it is combined with humility. Vera is admired still. |
