Diminished secretarial support and the advent of voice recognition technology
The advent of word processing has allowed pathologists to manage their own correspondence which, in many ways, is preferable to the constant back and forth with typists. This allows pathologists to complete their reports on screen, without approving a final draft typed from the office. As financial resources dwindled, pathologists buffered the decline in the number of secretaries by absorbing typographical tasks within easy reach. Voice recognition, the next big thing, sends dictated reports as immediate text to the computer screen. The software recognizes rapid continuous speech, and copes with most accents. It promotes yet another end-run around the traditional typist, facilitates the production of a final report, but also nourishes the demand for speed. Words dictated by a resident in a far off laboratory are instantly available on the pathologist's work list. We celebrate a technological feat that enables us to propel reports at full throttle, yet cannot deny that an entire job description has slipped into the lap of the pathologist, whose energy was previously focused on making a diagnosis, teaching the resident, and reviewing and signing papers that had been assembled by others. Our adaptation to voice recognition technology is invisible to the casual visitor, but represents a sudden, evolutionary leap in the performance of pathologists, who are now expected by administrators to demonstrate Darwinian evolution into a more complex life form.