The Reason Why Most Doctors Have A Sloppy Handwriting

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The reason why most doctors have a sloppy handwritingTIMESOFINDIA.COM / Dec 3, 2019, 15:00 IST

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​The reason why most doctors have a sloppy handwriting

While looking at your medical prescription, have you ever wondered why doctors have such bad handwriting? We are sure all of us have had this thought. A doctor’s writing is not just bad but can get completely unreadable many a times.

And obviously, it’s not like people with bad writing are attracted to study medicine. It’s not that all doctors have bad handwriting since forever. In most cases, their handwriting worsens over time. But why does this happen?

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​They have to write a lot

You thought doctors only have to write your prescription? Well, that’s not true. Doctors have to write much more than any other job all their life. Like if you have noticed, your doctor writes down every little detail you tell him as an evidence for your medical history.

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​Long and stressed day

Imagine attending to 20 and sometime even 50 patients a day. Listening to their ailments, noting down everything and prescribing everyone the right medicine. How stressful can that get? And not to forget attending emergency cases on top of it. So, long days with tons of writing leads to a very tired hand.

The handwriting gets worse by the end of the day as those hand muscles get overworked. Just like when you started writing your exam in the most beautiful handwriting and the by the time you reached the last page, your handwriting was hardly readable because your hands were tired.

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​Doctors are in a rush

If doctors had ample time to spend with every patient, they might slow down and give their hand some rest. But the truth is, doctors are mostly rushing from one patient to another because there are so many to attend. With so little time, doctors are only concerned with noting down all the information, rather than perfecting their writing.

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​Jargon is to blame

The doctor's jargon itself lends to bad handwriting. For example, imagine writing epididymitis without a computer spell-check. This is just one, there are so many technical terms and it’s not possible to remember all the spellings. And sometimes there are terms that are absolutely clear to medical experts but might leave you confused. But in most cases, your pharmacist also knows what exactly your doctor means.

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​Ask for electronic prescription

But sometime small errors could entirely change the meaning like mg and mcg. Thus, now doctors are moving towards electronic records to cut down on errors. At some places, it’s illegal if you give out your patients a written prescription.

You will be shocked to know that as per the data from 2006, there are 7000 deaths per year due to wrong prescriptions. We don’t know if the number has reduced over time. So, be careful and ask your doctor for a printed prescription.

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