Medical Transcription Guidelines -18

Periods

1. Some physicians are very consistent in dictating periods to denote the end of a sentence. Others dictate them sporadically, and still others never use them in dictation. The transcriptionist should be aware that the physician frequently loses track of what punctuation was dictated, and thus it is up to the transcriptionist to supply periods and other punctuation marks as appropriate.

2. Physicians educated in foreign countries may use the term stop or full stop to denote a period. Physicians from the Middle East often say "perr-ud" instead of period.