I never thought an actual patient could ask me this – and ask me seriously. The patient was a retired accountant in his sixties and he asked me, with all seriousness if we are taught in medical school how to write horribly.
I told him he was wrong, that we actually have nice handwriting though various reasons could account for our writing being sloppy occasionally, some reasons being:
1. large number of patients
2. Emergencies
3. Might not want patient to see what you are writing (eg his bill).
But being a scientific kind of guy, I set out to disprove his assertion; I checked the different case notes around me and what I saw shocked me.
Most Doctors really have bad handwriting.
Discomfort, cough, breathing, beautiful
Discomfort – 0*
Cough – 1*
Breathing – 1*
beautiful – 3*
Which belongs to you doc?
Seems it was quite easy; if only you had seen the originals. Still waiting for scores.
I was able to read them all, but it's not the finest penmanship, that's for sure. 🙂
In my own defense, my handwriting was terrible long before I entered medical school. But I prided myself on writing very clearly on prescriptions. The risk of error is too great not to. I even had pharmacists compliment me. Made this messy scribbler feel proud. 😉
Haha, that's true Carrie; didn't think of it that way, I've always assumed pharmacists don't have a problem with our writing.
When I worked for Dr Ben, his Raynaud's made his handwriting atrocious and very hard to read. I often had to decipher the entire office notes section in order to get the Dx correct.
Oh my, that must have been really trying for both of you. Thanks Lynda.
Discomfort – 0
Cough – 1/5
Breathing – 1/5
beautiful – 3/5
im guessing "Breathing" is yours lol
Haha, 'discomfort' is certainly the worst of the lot.
Lol, Thank you Mikki, I have to agree with your scores. Clue: Mine is self explanatory and a bit out of place for what you will readily find in a Doctor's note.
lol..I have figured it out now…
discomfort is definitely te
discomfort is definitely the worst of them all, followed by cough. breathing and beautiful could be any person's writing in my opinion.
I've never had a pretty or the neatest of hand writings but i thinks as doctors dealing with lives we should be conscious of what we write because writing that is not decipherable can cause delays or disasters in emergencies. could lead to administration of wrong medication and/or wrong dosage etc.
But yeah i agree that the workload and rate at which you have to see patients sometimes contribute as you have to write too fast sometimes. Hence the appearance of scribbles.
Thank you very much dpearl, very well said.
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Sorry Dr E – thought I had commented here. Did think yours was beautiful!
As a teenager I worked at the PPB (Prescription Pricing Bureau) which involved reading (handwritten – no comps then) and pricing prescriptions.
So it was that even the most illegible handwriting became legible to me.
Anna :o]
Thank you Anna; another school of thought: maybe computers have contributed to bad handwriting.
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