Help Wanted!  Transcribing Physician Presentations

A great deal of time and labor is involved in putting the TMA Journal together.  So much valuable information is included in each Journal.  We receive a lot of information from physicians and scientists, including the doctors on our Medical Advisory Board.  During the 2004 Rare Neuroimmunologic Disease Symposium in Baltimore, we received the latest information about research and the best treatment options available for transverse myelitis, optic neuritis, ADEM and NMO.  We are grateful to the physicians who have so generously authorized the TMA to publish their findings and presentations in our Journal.  By publishing these presentations we are able to more readily share this important information with people who were unable to attend the symposium.  Additionally, the physicians are reviewing and revising their articles to include the most recent developments in their subject areas. 

The TMA has audio recordings of the symposium presentations, and I have been transcribing these audio lectures into documents for editing and publication in the newsletters.  It is an enormous job.  I have received a lot of help from Debbie Martin in South Carolina, and without her help I would not have been able to get the presentations ready for publication into this current Journal. 

We are seeking help from others to assist us in this process.  If you are a good typist and would like to offer your help to this very important project, I would really love to hear from you.  You will need a computer.  I will send you a CD with the presentations.  The audio portion can be opened with either Media Player or Real Player.  We would prefer that the transcriptions be created as a Word document, but we would be able to manage any word processing file type. 

The best way to contact me is through my email address at dcapen[AT SIGN]myelitis.org or if you would like to call me and have me return your call, my phone number is (951)658-2689.  You can leave a message on my answering machine and I will return your call.  Please let me know what part of the country you are calling from, so that I don’t wake you up in the middle of the night to return your call.  I live in California.  By volunteering to do this work, you would be offering a very significant contribution to your fellow members of the Association.  It is so important that we share this information with the people who desperately need it.  Thank you so much for considering our request for help, and, again, a huge thank you goes out to Debbie Martin for her hard work. 

Debbie Capen
Secretary
The Transverse Myelitis Association