Learning the Palmer MethodDinosaur Doc is complaining that we docs are unfairly stereotyped as bad handwriters. Apparently #1 Dinosaur was once a calligrapher and has a gorgeous penmanship.
My handwriting is not just legible; it is lovely. Patients are often in awe of my prescriptions, instructions and Return to Work notes, usually accompanied by some crack about doctors and their handwriting…I know for a fact that I am not the only doctor with legible handwriting, and I am sick of listening to assumptions about my penmanship based on the letters MD after my name.
Well, #1, you may have been a calligrapher, but I was masterfully trained in the Palmer Method of handwriting by the nuns at my grade school. As testimony to the success of the Palmer method, my sisters, girlfriends and I all had beautiful Catholic girl handwriting, which usually looks something like this –
Interestingly, the boys did not seem to take as well to the Palmer method – I don’t recall my brothers’ handwriting ever being as “Palmerized”. It must be a girl thing.
My friend T. still has handwriting that would make the nuns proud. But, I am ashamed to say, my handwriting has completely deteriorated.
Was it medical school or leaving the church that caused the decline? I can’t say.
What I do know is that the situation is even worse when one considers my signature, which was so long in grade school that I had to hyphenate it across the page. That same signature has now shrunk to a mere squiggle which resembles the letter y in the word “try” up there.
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?)
All of which is a long way of saying that I beg to differ with you, #1 Dinosaur. I think most of us docs have pretty bad handwriting.
And you are clearly an exception to the rule.
Your handwriting absolutely fascinated me TBTAM, as mine has deteriorated in exactly the same way (they could be siblings), and I don’t even have the excuse of writing and signing prescrptions all day long.
Similarly my signature has gone from being an elegant cypher, to aan unidentifiable scrawl.
But compared to my doctor’s scribble (according to my pharmacist, illegible even by medical standards) your’s is both legible and stylish.
My handwriting deteriorated over the years until it became virtually illegible. It’s gone back to being rather nice when I focus. What made the difference? Carpal tunnel repair. Really. You’re not getting any tingling in your fingers, are you?
Actually, TBTAM, my point was that I do not believe that doctors’ handwriting is any worse than any other group of adults of similar age. No one writes very well anymore. We’re just the only ones whose writing issues can create life and death problems.
Well as a retired pharmacist I can say that on the whole doctors do have terrible handwriting (Dino excepted, for sure). Luckily when you work in a teaching hospital, as I did,you find docs have pretty standard orders on the whole. Although sometimes it would take 2 or 3 of us to figure some drugs out. Also everyone wrote in generic, which is not the case in community pharmacy and doctors there are not necessarily local so you don’t know their handwriting. Worked in community too for some years, much more difficult.
That said, pharmacists also have terrible handwriting, my signature was known as the coathanger. Basically my first initial followed by a squiggle. Yes we signed our names dozens of times a day too.
Chairwoman and Judy – I reckon we all just write worse as we age, huh?
#1- Point well taken. None of us do write well anymore. And I find that as I type more, my writing gets worse. I think the actions needed to type (the staccato up and down movements of the keys) have made my fingers too impatient to allow for the smooth flow of ink….
JMB
I guess pharmacists are happy about the EMR, huh?
A physician friend secretly told me many years back that bad handwriting by doctors and other professionals is to “hide spelling errors.” Could be true.
I can say as a supervising RN / PHN that some handwriting by nurses and other professionals are just as difficult to decipher. I usually just “clarify” what I can’t read. I also agree with the comment about impatience causing poor script and / or problems with carpel tunnel, arthritis, and etc. as we age. Mine has definitely worsened.
Ahhh, the Palmer Method… I remember it well. I also remember the nuns, the uniforms, …
I’m afraid my handwriting regressed as well. I think some of it had to do with teenage rebellion.
My mother, who is 90, still has her Palmer Method writing books…
Yup, most doctors have terrible handrwriting. I work in a GP’s, and although I am much better than I used to be, half the time I still can’t work out what the doc is asking me to do.
I think it’s all the note taking in school that does it. When I have lots of time I have beautiful handwriting, but I’m usually writing in class and I have to go quickly so as to not miss anything the lecturer said. As a result, I am now the produced of some barely legible chicken scratch.
So, my vote is that med school is what caused the handwriting deterioration 🙂
My point was that my handwriting had deteriorated, but has since recovered – thanks to the hand surgeon who performed bilateral carpal tunnel releases. I write pretty again.
Arthroscopically. I’d show you my scars, but I don’t have any.