Can you use the less than < and greater than > symbol in a dictation? My Forrest General Medical Center 3rd Edition books says I might see them used in medical reports, but www.ismp.org a website listed in my Fundamentals and Practice book lists it as an error-prone abbreviation.

It seems like all these books and website contradict each other. How is a someone new to transcription suppose to keep all these rules straight.

americus,
Try PM to kkb. She is a transcriptionist for many years. She might give you the answer to what you need to know. I know I wouldn't use them. But who knows. It may depend on the doctor.

I am a student at Penn Foster and I know your not suppose to use them, they perfer you to type out the word. Hope this helps.

Hi Americus,

The AHDI Book of Style 3rd edition has the ISMP chart in it and states (on page 213), " . . . the Joint Commission [www.jointcommission.org] . . .still strongly recommends the adoption of policies related to all the abbreviations on the ISMP list below."

The reason given in the table for not using < and > is that they may be "mistakenly used as opposite of intended."

Based on that, as a working transcriptionist, I would go by the Book of Style, as the majority of transcription services use this as their style reference. That way all MTs should be transcribing symbols, etc., the same. However, to get a better grade in your course you might have to do it the way they want.

I believe MT courses should be furnishing and implementing this reference as part of their course because these are the style standards that companies are going to be looking for when potential employees take their transcription test.