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Writing badly for a doctor is a matter of survival!
In a single eight hour shift s/he can write their signature
alone fifty or more times!
The real problem is the amount of paperwork that needs to be
done for each patient. For legal reasons, everything done, or
found, has to be documented on paper prior to discharge. Many
doctors eventually realize that most of this.
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paper-trail ends up stuffed in files and forgotten, and interferes
in what is really important - seeing and treating patients.
Many also realize that what they write is not intended for
the public to read, only for themselves and their peers, and as you'll
see, the way we write is decipherable amongst ourselves once you know
what to look for. Also you'll see that bad handwriting in doctors
is made not born (how could anyone get through college
far less med school writing so badly).
How to Write like a Doctor
- Abbreviate
- It's much faster to write 'SOB' than 'shortness of breath'.
- Write small
- distance takes time so writing in between letters small saves
time.
- Skip vowels
- cn u rd ths sntnce? Most sentences can be read without vowels.
- Write the first
two or three letters legibly then scrawl - as doctors and
allied health pros use the same words over and over it only takes
one or two letters in context to recognize a specialist word.
The problem with this kind of writing is when doctors get so into
the habit of writing bad that they write everything, to their peers
and outside, in this medical shorthand no-one else - and often they
themselves - can't read. So it's important to remember that it has
limitations like any other tool in the medicine bag.
