MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION - HISTORY & OVERVIEW  

Let's break the word transcribe down.  Trans- is related to the word transfer, which is "to convey or cause to pass from one place, person, or thing to another": Scribe is both a pronoun and a verb.  A scribe (pronoun) is one who records things in written form; to scribe (verb) is to write or inscribe.  Being a scribe in ancient Greece was a highly esteemed profession with a well-educated and highly specialized person providing the service.  The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, kept his physician notes as a written record of medical symptoms and treatments.  The notes also served as a basic guide for the next generation of doctors, with each adding to the cumulative pool of information. 

In the early 1900s, medical stenographers began taking dictation by shorthand; thereafter, dictation machines evolved. 

Since that day, the reco...