Sloppy medical scribbles may compromise health, say experts

It's "totally unacceptable" that Canadian medical professionals' garbled scribbles on prescriptions and hospital charts continue to put patients at risk, one of the country's leading doctors said on Thursday.




Dr. Louis Francescutti, the president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, made his comments following the case of a Nova Scotia nurse who was reprimanded for his illegible handwriting. Earlier this month, the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia ordered Wilfred Douglas Gordon to complete a documentation course after finding his writing on nurses' notes and patients' charts was unintelligible.
"But in 2011 it's totally unacceptable that we're still handwriting — that's how the monks did it," Francescutti said. "Everything should be dictated or typed."
The Nova Scotia nurses' complaints committee found that Gordon's penmanship was poor enough to put 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.
For the next six months Gordon's supervisor will review his handwriting on patients' charts on a monthly basis.




But Francescutti has a simple idea to rid hospitals of the sloppy script that has endured within the medical profession.
"If you pull out a physician's chart and you can't read what it says, they shouldn't get paid for that procedure," he said. "Patients' lives are actually in danger by misinterpretation of drug dosage or a procedure. It's totally inexcusable."
Unreadable handwriting on patients' charts and prescriptions has been an area of concern for regulatory boards before.
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario spokeswoman Kathryn Clarke said that cases have occurred where illegible medical records have been a factor in disciplinary decisions. CPSO disciplinary committee records show cases in 2006 and 2007 where a physician's garbled record-keeping was noted in the college's findings.




Francescutti said that while the importance of legible writing is covered in medical schools, "the people that teach it are the ones that can't write either."
The University of Rochester Medical Center attempted to bring some clarity to its staff's writing by bringing in handwriting experts to lead a seminar in 2003.
Robert Panzer, the hospital's chief quality officer, said that the free course taught staff to write legibly at a speed suitable for a hospital's hectic pace.
"We all got better. There's absolutely no question," he said. "At the end of this course I was able to write a legible note, which I really struggled with before."
But outside of attempting to reform chronic scrawlers, Panzer agreed with Francescutti that the best solution is to eliminate handwriting altogether — something the University of Rochester hospital has done with the implementation of electronic records.
"The real answer is to get away from ink and pen to things that are legible and can be seen anywhere by anybody who needs to see it, without being stuck with the chart," he said.
The Capital District Health Authority — the Halifax-based health authority where the reprimanded nurse works — said it's working to institute electronic health records. A health authority spokesman said that technologies such as tablet computers are being considered to eliminate the need for handwriting.
Francescutti was blunt in his assessment of the enduring stereotype of doctors with sloppy writing.
"If you're smart enough to get into medical school, you should be smart enough to know how to write," he said.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/health/Sloppy+medical+scribbles+compromise+health+experts/4538604/story.html#ixzz1JW6UfzRL

Does handwriting even matter anymore?

As an impressionable young teen working at my dad's office, I took great pride in being complimented on my handwriting.

It's so legible.... Anyone can read this!....This message is so neat.

Yes, it is entirely possible that his employees had nothing better to say about me. Still, I chose to see the glass half full, and go with that great handwriting skill and and run with it.

So, what's an orderly mother to do when her child doesn't write well?

Not so nice to say, but it's true. My son's childhood has been filled with such remarks as:

I can't read this. You're going to have to do it over again.

and

You should be a doctor with handwriting like this!

Having heard no unpleasant comments of late, I assumed it had improved--until today, when I received a call from the school counselor's office.

They couldn't quite make out his social security number and couldn't process his request for a work permit without verification. They couldn't tell if the digit in question was an 8 or a 0.

Seriously?!@ I told him to make sure he completed all those forms neatly, that the last thing he wanted was for his retirement money to go to someone else! Because he is so tight with his dinero, I have to assume this was his version of neat.

Not that I'm blaming, but it's all my husband's fault (as are all my kids' flaws:>). If handwriting were a language, you might say my husband writes in Spanglish--two different styles meshed together to form words.

His printed block-style letters are all connected together. It really is a mess. Even so, he's managed to do all right in the world. Even has a several patents in his name.

Seems everything nowadays--from texting to term papers to business proposals--is done electronically, so should parents really worry over a child's lack of handwriting skills?

Unless you're filling out that rare job application by hand or your cursive is being analyzed in a murder/kidnapping investigation, does handwriting even matter anymore?

Nursery kid thrashed by principal, sustains fracture

Angry with a nursery student's "illegible handwriting", a principal thrashed the child so hard that the four-year-old suffered a fractured arm, police said on Friday. The principal has been booked but is absconding. Mahi Verma, who studies at Bright Public School in Gosainganj town, was on Thursday
thrashed by school principal Deepak Kumar, police said. The girl is being treated at a hospital. "While the principal was on an inspection of classes, he entered Mahi's class, and randomly started checking students' notebooks," police inspector Sanjay Pandey told reporters on Friday.




"Deepak lost his temper while going through Mahi's notebook. First, he scolded the girl for her poor handwriting and later started thrashing her when the girl failed to make out what she had written," he added.
The girl's parents have alleged that their daughter was repeatedly hit with a duster on her right arm.
"Even as the girl was crying and writhing in pain, the school authorities did nothing for her treatment. An employee of the school left the girl outside her home and left," said Pandey.
"The case against the principal was registered late Thursday after a complaint by the girl's parents," he added.

Schools Debate Cursive Handwriting Instruction Nationwide

 

 

 Cursive handwriting instruction is disappearing.




Students and teachers alike have swapped pencils for keyboards, baselines for blinking cursors, and have all but written off the traditional route of writing.
Although standardized tests may not pick up the flourish of a cursive capital "T" or grade against floaters and sinkers, proponents of cursive handwriting maintain that there is value in teaching the craft and hope to save it from being erased from educational relevancy.
ABC News reports that 41 states have adopted the Common Core State Standards for English, which omits cursive handwriting from required curriculum. Now that it's not mandatory, schools around the country are debating whether or not to spend valuable teaching resources on penmanship.




In New York, some schools are considering cutting it altogether. Deb Fitzgerald, a second-grade teacher at Van Schaick Elementary in Cohoes, told CBS 6 Albany that she'd rather "move on" and focus class time on other topics.
WATCH:

Colorado schools are also engaged in a similar debate. Some teachers believe that cursive is archaic and that students should be prepared for contemporary communication. Susana Cordova, chief academic officer Denver Public Schools, told the Denver Post:

"In many respects, it's only inside our schools where we see such emphasis on paper and pencil," she says. "The move outside our schools, and in innovative schools, is toward technology. There will always be a role for the written word by hand on paper. But the experiences most of us have, with 30 minutes a day practicing cursive in class, has gone by the wayside."

However, just as there are two loops in a cursive capital S, there's another side to the debate.
Cindee Will, assistant principal at James Irwin Charter Elementary School of Colorado Springs, maintains that choosing to teach cursive is not about aesthetics or preference, but about giving children the mental tools needed to read English. She explained to the Denver Post that the threaded letter strokes help guide students' eyes left-to-right and definitively correlates reading with writing:

"When kids get to third and fourth grade, when they're supposed to be composing, they can use more brain space for content than mechanics," Will says.

That rationale is intensely applied at Camperdown Academy in Greenville, S.C., a private school that teaches dyslexic children how to cope with their learning disabilities. WYFF reports that Camperdown teachers use cursive handwriting extensively, as the built-in mechanics of the craft teach students how to group words in the proper order and make it more difficult to swap letters. One teacher told WYFF:

"They do so much better if they can interact with what it is they're learning."

To some, the interactivity of cursive not only relates to the physical act of writing, but to community and heritage. When Pam Bates found out that handwriting would no longer be taught at her daughter's school, she had to take action. Bates started a cursive club and now helps 40 other students craft their writing by upholding a time-honored tradition. She told the Denver Post:

"I absolutely get that we're moving in a world that's technology-based," she says. "But I'm of the old school that believes you can't forget where you came from to get where you're going. There could be a day the computer crashes."

Although it seems technology could be called the enemy of cursive, it still can't quite conquer the written word.




Carnegie Mellon University's print analysis program, reCaptcha, was developed to make print texts searchable through digitization. However, when it comes to old handwritten manuscripts, the best translations are done with human eyes, reports The New York Times.
Whether or not the next generation will be taught to read those manuscripts remains to be seen. Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist involved with the reCaptcha project, echoes a familiar sentiment:

"Nobody reads handwriting anymore."

 

Nurse reprimanded for illegible handwriting

CBC News

Dr. Jock Murray says modern communication methods have made some health-care workers' handwriting worse. (CBC)

A Dartmouth, N.S., nurse has been reprimanded for his illegible handwriting, a problem some health-care workers say is made worse by modern communications.
Earlier this month, the complaints committee of the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia imposed conditions on the nurse's licence of Wilfred Douglas Gordon and ordered him to successfully complete a documentation course approved by the college.
For six months, the nurse's handwriting on patients' charts must also be reviewed on a monthly basis by his nurse manager for legibility.
"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 committee wrote.
"The committee was also concerned that despite being aware of the illegibility of his handwriting for many years, Mr. Gordon had not successfully addressed the issue."




Dr. Jock Murray, who practised medicine for 47 years including time in Halifax, said he's proud of his handwriting but understands he may be the exception to the rule.
"People have complained about the quality of the doctor's prescription for a century," he told CBC News on Wednesday.
"It was first based on the fact that they were written in Latin so people couldn't actually read it, and the last half-century it's more about the quality of the doctor's writing."
Murray said modern communication methods have made things even worse.
"The younger generation now of physicians often use a lot of abbreviations and they're getting that from how they use Twitter and Facebook or whatever and those aren't always consistent," he said.
The Capital District Health Authority — the health authority of the nurse who was reprimanded — said it's working to convert to an electronic health record by 2013. The hospitals will give doctors and nurses tablets at the bedside to eliminate the need for handwriting altogether.




"I think we're all a little guilty of not spending enough time on our handwriting sometimes," said Dr. Jane Brooks, the president of Doctors Nova Scotia.
"There are mechanisms within the electronic medical records for maintaining that patient safety."

Lubbock educators get a lesson on handwriting

Last Update: 3/26 11:28 pm

Print Story | Share

Lubbock educators receive a lesson on the importance of handwriting.
Occupational Therapist Roxanne Thompson is spreading the word on the link between handwriting and brain development.




Thompson says learning how to write legibly and efficiently is an important skill every student needs to possess.
"A lot of colleges across the U.S., the professors are actually asking their students to shut down their laptops and they're asking them to go back to taking notes and so we want to make sure kids have the skill to be able to do that whenever they get older and then they've got the skills to take notes," said Thompson.
She states when a child takes hand-written notes they develop better memory recall, which can translate into higher information retention and eventually, better grades.