Wow, it has been quite a long time since I last wrote. I am a horrible blogger! I promise I will try to do better so I don’t have to play “catch-up.”
Let’s see, I guess I have not written in my blog about Extreme Makeover Home Edition (EM:HE). Basically I will summarize and not go in to all of the details as I have many more things to discuss also. But back in February after I quit Dell, I finally got my family together to apply to EM:HE. I had been wanting to do it for years. We did, and it took us literally ALL DAY and through the night to finish. I worked on the long application for over a week, and the filming was long and tedious. Sent it in, heard nothing.
It is really funny how there is a thing called divine intervention and I believe if you keep positive thoughts they can manifest into your dreams. My counselor for vocational rehab also did a little video nomination for us. Six months later, in August of this year, my counselor called me and told me that EM:HE, the casting producer, contacted them looking for deserving Austin families. She immediately called the producer back and told her all about us. The producer sounded interested in hearing more and was told we had already applied. She asked if I could send in all of my application stuff, video, application, and pictures to a specific email address for them to review. We did of course.
So basically right now we just wait and see. They are looking at many more places in Texas. Normally, my understanding is that they pick between 3-5 families as finalists, they notify you of that at least, and then they surprise one of the families. I pray that we are a finalist because we need it so desperately. My parents deserve it more than anyone I know and it would make life so much easier for all of us. The way that we had let it go, then it came back to us in an opportunity through vocational rehab I believe is a sign.
School is going well, I have all A’s thus far. However, there are some serious issues.
I am taking three classes this semester; Medical Administrative Support, Medical Terminology I, and Medical Transcription I. As everyone knows by now, medical transcription is the “meat and potatoes” of this certificate/degree. The instructor is the most HORRID instructor I have ever heard of. Let me just sum it up (and keep in mind this is a SUMMARY of the issues.) Lessons are due every Monday, one chapter per lesson. She doesn’t post the lesson information until the Thursday before. She says all of the lessons are done the same way and to “follow the syllabus” but then she changes the assignments and rules right before it is due. She doesn’t respond to any emails with questions, I have three weeks of ungraded work; so I don’t know how I am doing, the quizzes she posts are poorly structured; have errors all in them, poor punctuation, poor spelling, confusing and much more. Each chapter has a question that you must answer on a discussion board, none of the questions match the chapters they are supposed to be for. The questions you must answer are in future chapters that we have not read yet. Then the latest thing was we have an assignment due tomorrow (Monday) and she didn’t even remember to post a link to submit the assignment. We all tried to contact her to tell her we had no way to submit. She didn’t reply; well she did today (the day before) but only because her voice mail box was full did she happen to notice. She didn’t delete the messages because it is still full and now no one can leave a message. She finally posted the link.
I know other students complained before me to her supervisor. I wrote her supervisor two weeks ago and I got blown off with the excuse that the instructor had had the flu as to why she didn’t respond. That she was aware of the discussion board mismatching and errors in tests and that it should be fixed by now. That was two weeks ago and nothing has changed and is still progressively getting worse and worse.
Well basically a lot of students have bonded together and there is two students that live in Killeen that will physically go up to the school on Tuesday to complain to the supervisor. One has gotten over 12 students to write formal complaints, come to find out one student has dropped the class because of the instructor, and two are now saying they are not going to pursue medical transcription. I am at a loss. This instructor is the instructor for all future transcription classes!!! This is my education and my career on the line.
This school is AHDI (Association for Health Documentation Integrity)certified which is a pretty prestige accreditation. AHDI requires:
Instructor Qualifications
Content developers must be CMTs through the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) or have a minimum of three years acute-care or multi-specialty experience. Content developers must demonstrate current knowledge in course content through appropriate professional development activities. Instructors for Medical Transcription Practice content area must be CMTs through the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) or have a minimum of three years of acute-care or multispecialty experience or possess equivalent qualifications.
Required Texts & Teaching
This instructor does not list any credentials of a CMT. If she was a medical transcriptionist then that is scary because she cannot even proofread her own work, or properly lay out the curriculum and seems to have no idea.
I don’t know what I am going to do if they do not do something with her. The transcription classes are only going to get harder and I cannot do this course if she is the instructor, period. Yet, I don’t know what I will do if something doesn’t change. I don’t know what other options I have. It would be a huge failure if I do not come out of this schooling which I estimate will take me until the end of next year to complete and I do not even have enough knowledge or adequate training to be a MT.
I am so proud of the girls going up there to fight for our educational rights. She has printed over 40 pages of proof and documentation to show. If the department supervisor tries to blow them off, one of the girls said she would take it to the Dean.
Anyway, I could go on and on about this ordeal, and I am sure that something has to work out. It does make me very leery of the entire program and school though. I cannot believe after I pointed out all the MAJOR problems to the supervisor that NOTHING was addressed. Just excuses and was told if I had any other problems to take it up with the instructor! I can’t even get a reply from her on ANYTHING!!!! Today is the first reply I have received in over three weeks! None of my other emails were answered. Even then her replies were vague and didn’t help at all address the problems I was discussing with her.
