AAMT: Suggestions for Changes

AAMT Webpage / 1999 Convention Board / Discussion on AAMT, 1997 / Discussion in 1998 / AAMT Pros and Cons 1997 / AAMT Pros and Cons 1996 / Convention Report 1996

1) I propose that a committee be established to develop a performance appraisal for all paid staffers at AAMT, particlarly the ED position, to be (somehow) voted upon by members at large. If specific criteria were deemed by the general membership to not be met, it would be considered a vote of no confidence - perhaps with a time-frame for improving performance before another candidate is considered for the position. Sound complicated? Yes, I think it shall be. Maybe taking the votes 1/3 from the BOD, 1/3 from the delegates, and 1/3 from the general membership.

2) I propose that during the HOD session, motions be accepted from the gallery, with passage of such motions of 2/3 of all active members in good standing (those present at the session, of course). This would, in effect, allow the general members some mechanism for over-riding decisions made by the delegates, and hopefully balance out the "herd mentality" that takes over during that intense day-long meeting. This may require a bylaws change, but from what I can decipher, this is stipulated in the "house rules" which are voted upon by the delegates just prior to each HOD session. So, the HOD could simply amend the "house rules" before the meeting. Somehow, we need to shift the power base back to the members.

I got a call from Pat Forbis yesterday and she wants to meet with us to discuss issues that have been discussed on the BB. She read my idea of meeting with national people and she thought it was an excellent idea. She has suggested 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning, as everyone is so short on time at the convention.

I have posted a note on the Prodigy BB about this and have asked people to email me or post on the BB about attendance. I am to call Pat back next week with an approximate number of people. I have also invited members not attending the convention to email or post their concerns to me, as I am putting together an agenda for this meeting. . .at least this is our opportunity to get a dialogue started. I am very excited about this! -Patricia

--Let the Board lead AAMT and make the decisions.
--Let the Board appoint new executive directors.
--Let the Board share openly with MTs.
--Let the Board be on-line.
--Increase staff for website and make it interactive.
--Cut staff and decrease travel to conferences.
--Work to bridge gap between AAMT and front-line MTs, be more approachable.
--Have on-line conferences, national and regional.
--Participate on all public MT forums on-line.
--Publish E-mail addresses for national leaders and board members.
--Allow board members to participate in E-mail and forums.
--Respond individually to E-mail.
--Reduce membership dues.
--Reduce cost of journal, JAAMT, and make it available to nonmembers.
--Publish JAAMT monthly with more practical articles for MTs.
--Publish critical letters to the editor in JAAMT.
--Publish AAMT business and bylaws separate from JAAMT.
--Increase the number of MTs who write for JAAMT.
--Encourage state and local chapters to have web sites.
--Encourage individual MTs to have web sites.
--Put up links from AAMT web site to web sites by MTs.
--Allow membership in local AAMT without membership in national AAMT.
--Simplify bylaws.
--Allow local groups to form with just two people.
--Allow local groups more flexibility in planning meetings, including networking with each other at meetings.
--Abolish CMT test or change it to restore integrity.
--Evaluate MT training programs, establish criteria and rate them.
--Evaluate MT companies and departments, establish criteria and rate them.
--Evaluate MT technologies and products, establish criteria and rate them.
--Allow CMT continuing education credit for research on Internet.
--Arrange for group health insurance for independent MTs.
--Create a mentoring program for new MTs and give CMT continuing credit for it.
--Make more of the books available on diskette or CD ROM, not only for the Visually Impaired, but for everyone.
--Give information in JAAMT about on-line MT resources.
--Write articles for JAAMT about local AAMT chapters and members.
--Write articles in JAAMT to prepare MTs for being laid off, with information on how to get set up at home.

6/96, From Linda Campbell:
I think that you need to be more specific. If what you are really saying is, the AAMT board should consider hiring a more forward-thinking, visionary executive director, I agree. The Board is supposed to make the decisions, and they will deny that anyone other than board members make decisions. Perhaps what needs to be discussed is having more visionary leadership on the board as well. No one appoints board members--they are elected. However, you can't vote if you are not a member. You can't make an effective change unless you do it from the inside. The bylaws provide for recall of board members. We need to elect people who will not compromise their positions. Let the board know what needs to be done and what you think as a member. And how about having them use their frequent flyer miles for business travel instead of personal use?

Not everyone is on-line. Not everyone will be on-line in the next year or two, either. Many people do not want to be on-line frequently because it takes away from their productivity. If you did a survey of AAMT's 9000 members, I'd wager that you would find a very small percentage are on-line. And people really do need some sort of human contact. It's nice to go to medical lectures to see medicine in action first-hand, to be able to ask questions. But AAMT could change the Annual Meeting to an every-other-year meeting.

It's a worthwhile goal to have AAMT leaders available by E-mail, and I think they should work toward it fast. They are so afraid that "misinformation" will be disseminated about AAMT if everyone has their own E-mail--or so I have heard!

I think they could cut membership dues in half to $50, with no increase for several years. It is standard practice in associations to offer member and nonmember rates for publications and merchandise. This is supposed to be a benefit of membership.

They will tell you that manuscripts are welcome and solicited (except they don't pay for them, of course). They will say that most articles need too much editing to be printable. The latter is probably true. There are a lot of smart people out there with great ideas but no writing skills. I know this because I worked on AAMT publications for almost a year straight, and as you know, I do a lot of editorial stuff for HPI. It takes a really good editor to take someone else's poor writing and make it understandable. Additionally, you are assuming that AAMT welcomes discussions of controversial issues. I have not found this to be the case. I have seen perhaps two letters published in AAMT Journals that I would consider uncomplimentary.

CMT Exam: There are a lot of changes that should be made, lots of streamlining that could be done, and I think they should contract out the whole exam headache. Evaluation of training programs: Yes, but with the input of MT people who know how to critique, not just the "favorite daughters" of AAMT who happen to be teachers. For example, their experts came up with the idea that the ideal MT program is two years. However, never do they state how much transcription practice the students should have! And what about this fake dictation "Beginning Module" that AAMT produced--what kind of step forward is that, when for years those of us who were on the inside know that there NEVER was any question about producing ONLY authentic physician-dictated educational materials?

Every board eventually makes the decision through their vote but any board can be swayed to believe the way the chief officer believes. Ask me, I know how to convince a board to vote items exactly the way I want. Every board should share openly, however, there are some things the less said the better and these usually involve board and officer conflicts, etc. No organization is immune to such but stirring the pot by sharing only makes the conflict worse.

There is no reason the board of AAMT could not be on-line but they must remember to express their personal views. Any organization I have belonged to must have board permission or permission of the presiding officer to make a statement for that organization.

I agree the website should be interactive but I also think many MTs are not on-line and may never be. On-line communication is great but from my own personal experience I can tell you the impact and the feedback won't be the same as that received from a personal appearance by an AAMT representative at a local or state meeting.

AAMT would probably have to increase their staff to participate in all MT forums on-line. Figure out a way to deduct your dues. As a service owner my dues are tax deductible. Having looked at the membership dues for lots of other organizations, $100 is reasonable. Why should a nonmember be able to purchase the journal for the same price? If you subscribe to a magazine you get a lower price than if you purchase it at a grocery store -- same difference. I would like to see JAAMT published monthly.

Having just finished some college courses, looking at the writing skills out there, I agree it probably would be difficult to edit some articles to print. Why don't more people submit articles? I personally don't have time. Being from Alaska, we don't have any local chapters. It was a real struggle just to get a state association started so we could have a delegate and not be represented by the state of Washington. If you belong to a state association you must belong to National so why not chapters? I think AAMT could look at giving you a discount for belonging to local, state, and national.

I think the CMT test has been reworked to death and a transcription test as it used to be is a much better degree of measurement of a worthwhile transcriptionist. Again, whatever people think they should yell long and loud as a member.

I think AAMT could very easily stick its foot in its mouth and get in lots of trouble by evaluating MT companies. Evaluate MT technologies and products? Well, considering who sponsors a lot of AAMT events that might be a foot in the mouth, too. Try an organization like Consumer Reports -- they don't have any sponsors.

I would have to see a budget on the conferences before I would recommend lowering the price. I go about every other year (tax deductible continuing education CMT or not) and the lectures are, for the most part, excellent. One of the most memorable was a forensic pathologist who lectured in Dallas shortly after the Waco incident and included a little of his work on that disaster in the lecture. Being a home-based one person transcription company I find the conventions well worth the cost and use them as a vacation, which I don't get often, and an opportunity to catch up on some things I haven't even heard of yet.

As far as the house of delegates never voting to change any proposed by-laws changes, that is just not true. In 1995 I was the Alaska president/delegate and the gentleman from Washington and I both had fits about the proposed number of people needed (to be regulated by AAMT) for a state association or local chapter. We also vocalized about when these people need to be members, i.e. before the organizational meeting, etc., and these proposed bylaws were changed to what we thought were better numbers for sparsely populated areas.

AAMT has been around since 1978, and uprooting them and starting a new organization to represent transcription would be a lot harder than changing the present organization. I was asked a few months ago if I would like to fill a vacated board seat. Personally, with teenage boys at home and a business, I don't have the time or money to gad about the U.S. for AAMT. If anyone wants to make changes, run for the board. Anyone can change people's minds and change the direction of an organization. I find many of the articles in JAAMT a lot less critical of production transcriptionists than they used to be. They have come out with some reasonable guidelines for line length, of course National Association of Secretarial Services (NASS) did this a long time ago and I don't know why AAMT didn't just sign on instead of re-inventing the wheel. It also helps me justify not doing crummy transcription by saying it isn't up to the guidelines published by my professional organization. Do I follow all their guidelines? Heavens no. Mostly I follow the guidelines of those who sign my paychecks but when it comes to acronyms in diagnoses, which might get the dictator and myself in trouble, I pull out AAMT. Claudia isn't the "guideline goddess" but if you use the guidelines as a reference you can find some interesting material and then you can use it or not.

My favorite saying is, there is nothing as consistent as change. I started transcription on little red wax records and today I use state-of-the-art computer technology. Join AAMT and get on your soap box and tell the world what changes they need to make to truly represent transcriptionists.

Another possible idea would be to hold regional conferences. There are enough board members and other important people at AAMT that they could send several speakers to several regions of the country (at different times if need be) for regional conferences. This once again would allow those who cannot afford to go to a national conference to participate in that it might not cost as much to travel to a regional conference. Isn't that the idea, participation and getting out the "membership" to these conferences?

If dues were this low AAMT's membership might well double because there would be so many more transcriptionists who could now afford to be members. I also feel that with that many more members, AAMT could afford to publish a monthly JAAMT (I agree with the idea of using cheaper paper.) I also heartily agree with your idea of Claudia Tessier taking a sabbatical.

I would also like to see more articles on home-based MTs since this is such a growing field, plus many MTs are being forced into that since they are losing their jobs at hospitals and clinics to the big MT services. Articles could be written on how to prepare youself if you are caught in the downsizing trend, how can students find work, etc. In fact, the members of these on-line network groups should be allowed to submit articles to JAAMT (I refer to the wonderful information those MTs received at the last NET meeting in Calif) so those MTs who are not on-line can also share in this valuable resource and wealth of information.

I would also like to see, at least in every other issue, spotlight on local chapters. Their history, how big or small they are, what activities are they involved in, if and when they have symposia or meetings, with perhaps a special spotlight on a particular chapter member.

I understand JAAMT wanting to keep us informed on what is going on at the national level as far as their conferences, etc. because those things they are involved in will impact on the MT industry and we need to keep informed on what's happening out there. But they also desperately need to get back to focusing on the 9000 members who make up AAMT!

If we do indeed have a shortage of MTs that will last for any length of time, AAMT should also work with either federal or state departments of labor to develop MT training program for displaced workers in the US.

Secondly, the regional/state associations in our area do hold yearly or bi-yearly symposia and AAMT board members do come, a fee charged to AAMT, not the local regional/state association. Our local chapters (4 in Ohio) all hold yearly or bi-yearly symposia at a cost less than the convention, we offer 5-6 credits and AAMT leaders also show up and make themselves available for these at no cost to the local chapters. AAMT is on-line with an e-mail address. All anyone has to do is check out the AAMT web page and they will find the info they need. I have e-mailed (and received a response), directly called AAMT several times, and have never been disappointed in their help. As for BOD members being asked to step down, I feel that Claudia's knowledge and experience are very valuable to AAMT and we should be proud to have someone who has given so much of herself to help all of us.

The JAAMT is a great source of information and I agree that more information is needed for home-based workers since this is where the industry seems to be headed. Dues are not that exorbitant. AHIMA dues are even higher and the only thing you get for your AHIMA dues is....a journal! A lot of my friends who are ARTs and MTs enjoy the JAAMT more than the AHIMA journal but can't give up their ART so they join AHIMA for $110.00 or so a year and borrow our journals to read the articles! I think Glenda Smith has reiterated my beliefs also so far. If there is change to be made, we each need to help too. Get involved, participate!