Bad handwriting among nurses and doctors may be harmful to patients, according to a leading Canadian doctor.
"In 2011 it's totally unacceptable that we're still handwriting - that's how the monks did it," Dr. Louis Francescutti, president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a statement. "Everything should be dictated or typed."
Francescutti referenced the case of Nova Scotia nurse Wilfred Douglas Gordon, who was reprimanded earlier this month by the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia after his handwriting was deemed to be so bad it was putting his patients at risk.
"The committee found that Mr. Gordon's handwriting was so incomprehensible that it was ineffective as a communication tool and, even more concerning, potentially misleading to those reading it," the college's report said.
Gordon is now being required to take a documentation course and his handwriting on notes and charts will be overseen by a supervisor over the next six months.
Francescutti says even the professors teaching future doctors and nurses have bad handwriting and offers a simple solution.
"If you pull out a physician's chart and you can't read what it says, they shouldn't get paid for that procedure," Francescutti said. "Patients' lives are actually in danger by misinterpretation of drug dosage or a procedure. It's totally inexcusable."
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