TBTAM begs to differ with Dinosaur:
So bad is my John Hancock that my daughter’s teacher did not believe it was real, and accused the poor kid of forging my signature on her report card. I had to send in a note to explain that I am a doctor who signs her name hundreds of times a day, and that indeed, this was what my signature had become. (Not to mention it was a great report card – what would my daughter’s incentive be to have hidden it from me and then forged my signature?)
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- Forged prescriptions
- Poor handwriting leads to an infant’s death
- Can a doctor sue a patient for a negative online review?
- Doctor apologies: The real reason why insurers don’t want a "sorry"
- Instant gratification
- Prescription handwriting quiz
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{ 3 comments }
I think, to some extent, poor physician handwriting is caused by the psychological desire to maintain deniability. “That’s not what I wrote.”
That’s part of the reason many physicians are reluctant to accept computer-based patient records.
Certainly, there must be some grade school teachers just shaking their heads somewhere.
Just MHO.
Wrong.
I sign my name no less than 200 times a day on average when I include patient charts, prescriptions, and business checks.
This does not include my child’s homework and report cards. Nor does it count the volumes of patient documentation primarily necessitated by our federal government and medicolegal concerns.
I also do a few work and school excuses, fill out insurance forms, and write a few thank you notes to patients.
Beyond that, there are the inpatient hospital notes and operative reports I must generate and sign.
As you can see, I spend a large portion of my day on secretarial work. In fact, I have a large callus on my right middle finger, and occasionally suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome.
Another person might make the case that I have a worker’s compensation claim. Go ahead and argue that to Medicare. When you are the boss and business owner, with a family to feed and bills to pay, you keep right on working.
My orthopod uses a tablet to record his notes. It permits him to type and write as needed. Everything is clear and stored at the time of the visit, not later. The only problem is that changes are not possible due to HIPPA regs. All he can do is add a comment to a record to correct an error.
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