OK I realize this is a very old issue of Advance but you have to understand that these are delivered to my mail box looking like a porn magazine left on an open rack, if they’re delivered at all. Just a few days before Christmas, I picked up the November 17, 2008 issue and I’m just now getting around to reading it.
So what’s the first thing I see? The guest editorial by Brenda Hurley. Brenda, I lova ya – you know I do. And if we ever get a chance to Happy Hour again, I’m so there.
“Leaving a profession you love or staying bitter and angry – does that really work for you?”
As far as the former choice – why yes, I’d say that works really well for every MT I know who’s done it. In fact, many of them are happier and more prosperous. I’m scratching my head and trying to figure out why anyone would think it wouldn’t work.
There isn’t a shortage of jobs outside MT and let’s face it – since many of us got into MT so we could have more flexibility while our children were young, once the children are grown there’s isn’t a lot of incentive to continue sticking with the WAH options at all costs. And let me tell you – it can be costly. That MT is the digital equivalent of piecework sewing is the 300-pound elephant in the room that nobody talks about – and it’s probably one of the better WAH jobs, unless you have real entrepreneurial zeal.
“Does that really work for the greater good of our profession?”
If someone is leaving MT and moving on, why do they care about the greater good of the profession? So OK, I’ll agree that bitterness and complaining aren’t much good for anything, but I certainly wouldn’t encourage anyone to stay at a job that isn’t helping them meet their personal or financial goals just for the “greater good.”
“Just imagine the change we could impact if our membership was 30,000 or more instead of 7,000.”
I’m wondering how many MTs have to leave, how much of a crunch there has to be between supply and demand, before change CAN occur. Right now, the industry believes that technology is just around the corner that will make MT obsolete. What AHDI is telling you is that you will have a place in the New Order of Healthcare Documentation, it just won’t look a lot like what you currently do.
Well – what if you don’t like the New Order of Healthcare Documentation any more than you like the old one? Or even less? You will join the many MTs who have taken their skills to other jobs where, if they aren’t more appreciated they are at least paid hourly for showing up at work and spending the day there, and their skills are largely transferrable. And what if so many of us leave MT so fast that it leaves only those who are new, those with little experience, those who are just starting out because they want WAH jobs because they have children at home like we used to?
So – what do you think? If you had to make a choice between leaving MT entirely or staying and joining AHDI – which would it be?
So you want your own accounts?