What to Expect from a Career as a Medical Scribe?

Table of Contents

Medical Jargon
No Patient Contact
Multitasking

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Last Updated on November 3, 2024

Medical scribes are incredibly beneficial when capturing a patient’s medical details, maintaining accuracy, and improving patient records. Scribes are most employed in private practices, clinics, and hospitals, and they need to have very specific skills in place.

The profession requires someone with great written communication and verbal skills, as well as being able to listen carefully and take down exact notes about a patient. Here is what you can expect if you choose a career as a medical scribe.

Medical Jargon

A medical scribe must accurately capture a doctor’s interaction with a patient. Most of the , and all you need is a video or voice recording of the session with the patient. The only time you will need to understand medical jargon is if you actively want to learn about the patient’s condition and other medical terms. There is no requirement to be a medical student or know any of the medications or surgical procedures.

Medical scribes are useful for assistance between departments, such as monitoring that the patient goes through the system correctly. This can be when taking them from one room for testing to another or sitting with them while they have blood drawn.

No Patient Contact

Apart from the occasional times when you will accompany a patient with the doctor and nurse, you won’t have any physical contact whatsoever. All of the heavy lifting and working with bodily fluids will be done by the team on hand. Your job as a medical scribe is to accurately gather all the information needed for the patient’s case.

It would be advantageous to have experience dealing with patients, but this just gives you the upper hand as a medical scribe. You don’t necessarily need to possess the knowledge to perform the job, but it can help with future career development.

Multitasking

As a medical scribe, you will need to know how to manage time, as there will be several various tasks to complete each day. The main focus of the profession is that you can listen carefully and accurately write down everything that happens. You need to collect the relevant information and put it in an easy-to-understand format so that the doctors have a well-written and comprehensive medical report.

Although you won’t need any medical experience, you will need typing skills and be more computer literate than most. You need to understand and be able to work with all MS Office applications and be able to code the information you capture on the computer. Medical scribes also need to display very good communication skills and be able to work with different teams of medical professionals.

Working as a medical scribe is normally done part-time, as you will be working in shifts with doctors and nurses, but there is a lot of room to grow. It’s a great career to start in, especially if you are a medical student who needs to pay off study loans and other debts. Medical scribes often go on to work in private hospitals and clinics and this is the perfect starting point for a career.