Career Explorer Healthcare support
Changing shape
Medical transcriptionists
Transcribe medical reports recorded by physicians and other healthcare practitioners using various electronic devices, covering office visits, emergency room visits, diagnostic imaging studies, operations, chart reviews, and final summaries. Transcribe dictated reports and translate abbreviations into fully understandable form. Edit as necessary and return reports in either printed or electronic form for review and signature, or correction.
Among the careers AI is changing fastest: more resilient than 7% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is high (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it high), and US jobs are projected to change by -4.4% by 2035, expected to shrink.
AI can do many of the tasks, and hiring is expected to grow slower than average or to shrink. The job is likely to change, so build the human parts of it.
- Median pay (2025)
- $40,410
- Job growth to 2035
- -4.4%
- Openings a year
- 6,200
- People doing it (2025)
- 42,000
- Usual route in
- College certificate
Where people already use AI for this work
- Perform administrative or clerical activities
- Execute financial transactions
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Prepare health or medical documents
- Maintain health or medical records
- Schedule appointments
What the work looks like
- Return dictated reports in printed or electronic form for physician's review, signature, and corrections and for inclusion in patients' medical records.
- Produce medical reports, correspondence, records, patient-care information, statistics, medical research, and administrative material.
- Identify mistakes in reports and check with doctors to obtain the correct information.
- Review and edit transcribed reports or dictated material for spelling, grammar, clarity, consistency, and proper medical terminology.
- Transcribe dictation for a variety of medical reports, such as patient histories, physical examinations, emergency room visits, operations, chart reviews, consultation, or discharge summaries.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as automation of the medical transcription process by artificial intelligence (AI) tools reduces the need for medical transcriptionists.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Bridge and lock tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 51, -2.3%
- Gambling dealersHuman edge, steady, Index 44, +3.4%
- Gambling cage workersChanging shape, Index 9, -3.1%
- Umpires, referees, and other sports officialsHuman edge, growing, Index 72, +5.2%
Also known as: Medical Scribe, Medical Transcriptionist, Radiology Transcriptionist, Transcriptionist, Clinical Medical Transcriptionist, Documentation Specialist, Medical Language Specialist, Medical Transcriber.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.