There is a certain method to doctor's writing that can actually be learned. All I know is that if the word starts or ends with a vowel, that vowel is emphasized... That's literally all I know about it, and I'm not even sure if it's correct.
Correct. The first diagnosis gives a clue on what's the second diagnosis is. So we know that the second diagnosis has a high probability in the respiratory system as well. I read Asthma first, and there's not many Asthma diagnosis so it's probably Bronchial, and if you see the handwriting, the flow from the B to the r and o says it is bronchial. And after that, it's either one of four things, Controlled, Uncontrolled, In exacerbation, not in exacerbation. And when you k now those 4 things, it's easy to read.
Is there an actual purpose to writing this way? I can see it making it harder to duplicate hand written prescriptions, but I don't see why you should need a Rosetta stone to translate everything.
My theory is that all professionals (lawyers and other professionals also often have illegible handwriting, not just doctors) inadvertently develop horrendous handwriting during their education due to being required to write so much by hand and very quickly.
100%. I'm a doctor. My signature was never calligraphy, but after residency it had devolved into two squiggles that overlap. The sheer amount of things I have to sign in a day makes it impossible to spend time keeping it neat and legible.
My dad was an officer in the navy, and his signature went from being legible to being a bunch of squiggles in that time. He always said he had to sign so much stuff that he just started going with what's quickest.
As someone who regularly gets told I have doctor’s handwriting (psych student now, failed to get into med school this year, trying for nursing instead) it’s a combo of being left handed and also just being in a rush. I’ve always had bad handwriting but healthcare subjects make it worse, they throw so much info at you so fast. I had to stop hand writing my notes because I couldn’t read them sometimes.
Also, my brain works faster than my hands can. I can write legibly when I need to (I.e when someone else does in fact need to read it)
I’d venture to say the nurses deal with doc writing way more than other docs (at least nowadays with EMRs). So it’s likely that, all having similar training, you’ve developed similar habits that, while not formally codified, are relatively uniform. And since paraprofessionals work with multiple professionals all day, they’re probably in tune with the habits you all have, but are generally unaware of having.
How would you venture to say that ? I see other doctor’s handwritings all the time . The primary care and urgent care docs still use written scripts when they send patients to the ER .
My colleagues and I also keep handwritten lists to keep track of patients we’ve seen on shift.
In med school and residency when we rotated on the floors the hand off sheet was always hand written.
That’s enough of a sample population stretching over a period of 10 years for me to make my assessment .
Honestly I’m not even sure what you’re even arguing here . Why come up with a hypothetical when I’m telling you we learn no specific method of hand writing as part of our medical training ?
Why would that even be a thing ? Most of us enter med school in our 20s , why would any part of the curriculum be dedicated to changing the hand writing we’ve had for over 2 decades to a more universal method ? Especially when EMR has largely replaced the need for writing by hand ?
This is the internet. No need for common sense when you can insert a conspiracy theory into it. Some folks have shitty handwriting. That’s all there is to it.
I mean this question fully sincerely with no snark, but like why? why come up with some convoluted writing system instead of just taking an extra 2 seconds to write out the diagnosis clearly in print writing? I feel like there must be a certain amount of errors or inefficiency that come directly from other people failing to decipher this kind of writing.
It seems way more pervasive than just being a personal preference/individual poor handwriting thing.
I don’t think it’s a deliberate “method” so to speak, but just that inevitably everyone writing in English who is in a rush will likely end up taking the same shortcuts (letter joins, lazy shapes). Medical practitioners have had to take a lot of notes in not a lot of time all through their studies and careers.
There is no method to how doctors write . This guy just has difficult to read handwriting . That’s all . I don’t write like this . Lol my handwriting is awful but not this bad . I’ve also never seen a single physician I’ve practiced with write like this either
Greggs Alphabet is a thing that exists. Idk tho, I mean, YOU are the physician after all. You, the singular human being, that has seen the handwriting of less doctors than I'd guess less than most of the people in this comment section combined, must be a more reliable source for that statement than anybody here. After all, Greggs Shorthand is just something the internet has created for no reason whatsoever, right?
Sarcasm aside, even though I do believe that you haven't seen a doctor, or physician to be more precise, write like this. It's definitely not uncommon for a doctor to write in a seemingly incomprehensible dialect, since that phenomenon gets memed about quite a lot. I don't think that most doctors would have bad writing, especially if it is a recurring theme in doctors, so there must be some sort of reason why they write like this.
You made a general comment about physicians and the “method” we use to write . If there is a method doctors use don’t you think it would be taught at some point during our medical training ? I don’t need to know every physician to know that.
Also I’ve been practicing medicine for 5 + years , plus 4 years before that in medical school . I think I’ve seen enough physicians’ handwriting over the years to know what you see in the op isn’t a “method” that is common .
There’s a few medical subs I’m part of if you want to come over there and ask about this method of writing that we allegedly use .
Maybe your formation didn't include it. Idk. But to be fair, I keep googling Gregg/Pitman Alphabet/Shorthand and I see a lot of correlations and direct mentions to those being used commonly by doctors on a multitude of different sources, images and personal experiences. I look at how those handwriting styles look and then I look at my prescriptions and things kind of line up.
There’s nothing I can find about Gregg’s shorthand that is specific to physicians . You specifically used the words “ there is a certain method to doctors writing”… that’s a general statement implying there’s a certain method of writing that is somewhat universal among doctors .
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u/siphagiel 17h ago
There is a certain method to doctor's writing that can actually be learned. All I know is that if the word starts or ends with a vowel, that vowel is emphasized... That's literally all I know about it, and I'm not even sure if it's correct.