[Colorado-Talk] This piece of history from our PHD project in 1953 fearutes our own Diane McGeorge

[Amy Sabo]

hello peggy and all,
thanks peggy for posting this awesome article on diane. i didn't know
on this and, i'am glad that you posted it here to the list. i remember
when i was a teenager using a typewriter to learn to type. it was
before i lost most of my eyesight. thanks for reminding us how much we
have changed in communications in history for the blind.


sincerely,
amy sabo

On 6/3/21, Peggy Chong via Colorado-Talk <colorado-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi:
>
>
>
> Julie Hunter just finished putting  up  the latest batch of translated
> materials.  She found this article about medical transcribers I think you
> will like. The Diane Brown is our own Diane McGeorge.
>
>
>
> Peggy Chong
>
> [Newspaper article:  Denver Post Oct. 19, 1953 is written in the margin.]
>
>
>
> SIGHTLESS STENOGRAPHERS DO JOB 'BLIND CAN'T DO'
>
> By ROBERT BYERS.
>
> Denver Post Staff Writer
>
>
>
>               The blind do a full day's work, get paid a full day's wages
> and make their own way without extra help in a world of sighted persons at
> Colorado General hospital's medical records library.
>
>               What started out as a pilot demonstration on the wide variety
> of jobs which blind persons can hold down despite their handicap has turned
> into profitable day-to-day experience whereby the library gets its work
> done
> efficiently, correctly and swiftly.
>
>               Right now, three blind persons, are working as stenographers
> in the library, transcribing from dictaphones medical history summaries,
> surgery reports and letters for Colorado General doctors. A fourth. John
> Friel of 3339 Race street, is in training.
>
>               It's the kind of work most persons would say "the blind just
> can't do.''
>
> The library is an integral part of Colorado General operation. Everything
> that happens to a patient must be recorded and filed for future use.
> Doctors
> use literally thousands of dictaphone cylinders a year, recording
> procedures
> and treatments and results.
>
> RECORDS TRANSCRIBED.
>
>               Ruby Williamson, director of the library, decided last winter
> that transcription of these records is work the blind-with proper
> training-could do. Even sighted stenographers need special training for the
> job to acquaint themselves with the medical "language" used.
>
>               Miss Williamson contacted Claude Tynar of the Colorado
> Industries for the Blind, Inc., who referred to her three blind persons he
> believed suited for the job. They were Mrs. Diane Brown, 21, of 525
> Washington street; Keith Black, 25, of 945 Pennsylvania street, and Mildred
> Snow, 22, of 801 Logan street, all totally blind, but all with the ability
> to use a typewriter.
>
>               The three began their "medical jargon" course in January,
> learning prefixes, suffixes and word roots so as to enable them to
> recognize
> words used by the doctors in their reports. They mastered such jaw breakers
> as thromboangitis obliterans, a form of gangrene, and learned to
> distinguish
> between "ilium," meaning of the bone, and' "ileum," meaning of the
> intestines, both pronounced exactly the same.
>
>               Main disadvantage faced by the blind. Miss, Williamson said,
> was that they couldn't use the standard 1,700-page Dorlands medical
> dictionary like sighted persons. What they learned had to stick in their
> minds. Each did make about 1,200 Braille cards for most often used words
> and
> roots, and then thoroughly mastered the meaning of syllables used in
> combinations, such as in synarthrosis-syn- meaning together, and arthro-
> meaning joint, or an immovable joint.
>
>               Since mid-May, the three have been doing their work side by
> side with sighted stenographers and are more than holding their own.
>
>               "We show them no favors and expect the same work from them as
> we do from persons who can see," Miss Williamson said. That may sound a
> little testy at first brush, but according to Black- a native of Boise,
> Idaho, who worked his way through the University of Oregon despite his
> blindness--"that's just the way we want it."
>
>               "We don't want 'busy work' like they give school children to
> keep them out of trouble" he said.  "We want a purposeful job and the
> opportunity to work and live in society without special considerations."
>
>               We  like they give school children to keep them out of
> trouble," he said. "We want a purposeful job and the opportunity to work
> and
> live in society without special considerations."
>
>
>
>