[Histonet] Dictation software

[Eric Hoy]

I have been using the Dragon software for the Mac (MacSpeech Dictate)  for
about six months.  Unlike Dr. Richmond, my typing skills leave a lot to be
desired.  Sometimes I¹ll get three fingers involved in the process, but I¹m
getting pretty reckless when I try typing that fast.

About a month ago, I got the medical version of the MacSpeech Dictate, and
it is even better than the regular edition.  It has no trouble with terms
like polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, reverse transcriptase polymerase
chain reaction, and other terms that immunologists use.  Certain
abbreviations might confuse it, like ANCA (pronounced like Paul Anka, but
the software makes it ³anchor²), but it has no trouble with antineutrophil
cytoplasmic autoantibodies.  It is possible to dictate in ³spelling mode²
and pronounce each letter to get abbreviations.  It took me about five
minutes to train the software to recognize my voice, and about a month to
train me to dictate properly.  It works a lot better with a complete
sentences than individual words.

I¹m not a pathologist, so I don¹t use a lot of the terms that they use, but
for my purposes, this software works well.  I dictated this entire message,
except for the signature block, using the software.

Eric Hoy

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Eric S. Hoy, Ph.D., SI(ASCP)
Clinical Associate Professor
Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas
Email: Eric.Hoy <@t> UTSouthwestern.edu
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