Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/06/randomly-generated-doctor-hand.html
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My teachers always said they recognized my signature as the one they couldn’t read. Too bad I can’t send this back in time to write a few papers for me.
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Reminds me of the “Doctor” from Secret Life of Machines (ten second clip starting @ 20:35)
Doctor handwriting isn’t randomly generated already?
Man, I wish I could post pictures of some of the records I have to read. I’ve even called some hospitals where nobody there could read the writing, so they get the offending Dr., and they can’t even read their own writing (and it’s always Male doctors for some reason, almost invariably older…).
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Has anyone ever figured out why doctor handwriting is so bad? I can’t believe the old saw of “they sign their names so much they learn to do it fast”. Is it a culture thing (ie: “I’m a doctor, so I must have a crappy signature”)? Or perhaps a lowtech counterfeit deterrent?
Arrogance. You should see mine.
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I work in a library with literary manuscripts galore. Doctors don’t have handwriting any worse than anyone else. Rushed cursive handwriting is just hard to read.
There aren’t that many profession where the consequences of mis-reading the handwriting can be death, though.
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Doctors’ handwriting looks worse than other people’s because you don’t recognise the words RimabotulinumtoxinB or Idarucizumab. When most other people write, you can mostly guess from context what the next word is going to be. The pharmacist sees you already have a prescription on file for Empagliflozin, so it makes sense your doctor would now be prescribing Isavuconazonium Sulfate and he only has to glance at it.
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That poor patient is in bad shape!
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Nope that is pretty much it.
I have had several jobs where I had to sign for stuff multiple times a day and that is what happens when you have to sign sign sign… Even now my signature is more or less a scribble looking thing.
At least today the prescription part is printed out on the computer and just a signature is added, if that.
Perhaps it actually has less (or nothing) to do with doctors’ penmanship being particularly bad as compared to that of all other people, and more to do with (1) the greater degree of exposure doctors’ penmanship has to the general public (ex: I don’t know the penmanship of my friends and co-workers; everything is texted and emailed), my auto mechanic, my accountant, officials I’ve voted for, or my grocer, etc.), 2) myth being taken as fact (sound familiar?), and 3) people’s increased focus on doctors (“Oh! Your dad’s a doctor?!”)
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