Why doctor's handwritting is look like so bad.?

@vimaal (3361)
India
October 14, 2008 11:21am CST
Hi everybody how are you. Today my mother is suffering from Head ache. So she give a doctor's slip and told me to went to medical and brought the head ache tablets from this doctor's slip. Then i went to medical shop and ask a tablets. In that medical shop a small boy only working. He told me he didn't understand that doctor's hand writting and another two workers in that medical shop are went to home for lunch so you wait 30 mins. I got tension because my mother is suffering from over head ache. what can i do. Then i saw that doctor's slip mee too also don't understand that doctor's handwriting. why doctors write in that way we could not understand. Why do they write like this?..
4 people like this
21 responses
@winzpc (2354)
• Indonesia
14 Oct 08
I think it make we can't buy the medicine without the receipt and also the doctor get some percentage earning from the receipt. We don't know the name of the medicine so we must give the receipt to the pharmacy and pay the medicine with a higher price than without receipt. So My father always call the pharmacy people to rewrite the receipt in good handwriting. So I can know the name of medicine and I don't need to use a receipt to buy the medicine. It's save my money. keep post happy myLotting...
1 person likes this
@eshaan (6188)
• India
14 Oct 08
Actual thing no one knows...so lets think for some funny reasons.. 1. they studied so hard that they didnt find the time to improve their hand-writing.... 2. they dont want anyone to learn the medicines so that the people don't come to them next time.... 3. its the secret between the doctors and the shopkeepers... Anyways...good discussion, keep it up!!!
1 person likes this
@ronaldinu (12422)
• Malta
15 Oct 08
Maybe it give the impression of being more professional. Or maybe so that the laymen do not understand their handwriting so that you cannot deduct what they are writing :)
@lynnemg (4529)
• United States
14 Oct 08
I think that first of all, if this young pharmasist could not understand the handwriting, he should have picked up the phone and called the doctor's office to find out what it said. It would have only taken a few minutes of his time to do so. I think doctos write the way they do for a couple of reasons. One being that they are in a hurry and do not take the time to write legibly. I think the second reason has more to do with people forging precriptions. I feel that doctors write so sloppy to make it harder for someone to forge their signature or even a prescription. Unfortunately, people do actually do this, and we all pay for it.
1 person likes this
• United States
15 Oct 08
The doctor has no time and that's why they have to rush throught the writting. They have like 100 patients waiting for them in the waiting room. When they were in meds school, they have no time either. They work day and night in the hospital with people beeping them all throught the night. If you can't read it , call the doctor and ask what is it that he wrote.
15 Oct 08
I think Doctor is like a God but they are also human being.Sometimes they forget what is exactly name of that medicine,then they guess it and write it.So its feel bad writing but a pharmacist can easily understand.
• Bahrain
15 Oct 08
I have heard that very smart people have very bad handwriting, lol. dunno if it's true or not, still in the rumors department. But yeah, your handwriting can tell a whole lot about you and your personality, etc, so if ALL doctors have the same lousy handwriting then that means all of them have "something" in common.. and I suppose that's stress and brains? O.o
@hadi81 (436)
• Indonesia
15 Oct 08
if ur mother get head ache, u can give paracetamol. but i don't know the sickness. doctor's handwriting so bad means no one can read or copied by another doctor or others.handwriting doctor can be read on pharmacist school.i can't explain to much it's very complicated.
• United States
15 Oct 08
Sloppy Rx - Doctors have to handwrite prescription order after prescription order, and after a while, day in and day out, they begin to get careless with legibility.
Doctors have to handwrite prescription order after prescription order, and after a while, day in and day out, they begin to get careless with legibility. However, the kid at the store should have called the doctor's office to clarify what the doctor had written as he doubtless wrote a note in your Mother's medical record. That is sloppy too.
@tikei18 (359)
• Philippines
15 Oct 08
I don't have any idea why they write like that. Maybe because they are always in a hurry just like what others have just said and maybe they are used to it to write that way. I always want to be a doctor. I imitate how they write. One last thing why would that pharmacy let a small boy that doesn't know anything works. I think it's not allowed specially in a pharmacy. Its very dangerous. And why is no one is around. I think they must have a shifting process.
• Philippines
15 Oct 08
I think they in a hurry, you know doctors are always busy. When they have patient they have to hurry for the next patient to look for.
@candysky (855)
• Malaysia
15 Oct 08
I have a friend who study doctor and I have ask her this question before... she said actually their handwriting look so bad is because they have a lot of medicine name so they can't really remember all the spelling of the medicine, so they just simply write and for those pharmacy and nurse, they can understand it but if for us, sure we can't understand.... well, this is what my friend told me... Happy mylotting....
• Pakistan
15 Oct 08
ya its really intresting topic to discuss personally i ll be a complete doctor after three years i m studing in a medical college first my writing was much clear and simple but now with the passage of time my writing is also going in such a bad manners that the people understand it hardly. the only reason for that, is that i m reading most of time and writing very less that is why my writing is weaker and weaker so the only way is that , just write and write . which can benefit u specially for doctors Prince Sad
@ljq897 (77)
• China
15 Oct 08
Now that is the reason.No wonder why pharmacy is such a hard course. i think you,me and pharmacists would agree that doctor's crappy handwriting is kind a universal,cultural thing.It turned out that most doctor's handwriting is bad,regardless of the race,country or the college in which one studied medicine in.I have not much idea why a doctor has to write badly,maybe they are just plain too lazy to write,after examining billions patients throughout the day.
• Philippines
15 Oct 08
im not a doctor but my handwriting is bad LOL
@parthieie (418)
• India
15 Oct 08
Hi friend, even i experienced a lot like this befor. When usually i give the doctors slip to the medical shop they will have a small discussion over themself then only they give me down the medicines. I dont no the exact reason why they do so and write like this. If its for a joke then i can i say that , doctors are not clear of the spelling of the particular medicine. Or else any one of us must ask only the name and let us write the medicine ourself. Hope this will work out.
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
15 Oct 08
vimaal thatsa good qu estion. I think they just get in a hurry and dont realize they are scribbling.But the boy should have phoned the doctors office and asked for the name of the' medication; also your mom should have phoned the doctor and asked him for the correct name of the medication.
• United States
15 Oct 08
i have no idea.. but i have yet to find one that can write well.. maybe its so people wont copy them?? lol.. but no matter what i would be afraid i would get the wrong medication due to the writing looking like a different word because of sloppiness
15 Oct 08
Hi vimaal, The way doctors write out prescriptins is meant for the chemist to understand and not paiteints, normally they write it in Latin for the perpuse gthat we do don't understand it. Tamara
• Philippines
15 Oct 08
Hey there! The reason why doctors write that way is because the medicine they prescribe is a medicine that cannot be bought "over the counter". You know why? It's because the medicine could something addictive or dangerous. They do that to prevent addiction and abusive use of the medicine. That's why only pharmacists are the only ones who can read it in a pharmacy. By the way, that penmanship is called stenography. I think those who are taking secretarial course can understand that one.
• United States
15 Oct 08
I used to work in a hospital. I think the doctor handwriting is so bad because they are tired. Most have office hours and then come to the hospital to sign charts, check on admitted patients, perform procedure and they have tons and tons of stuff to sign off on. Nothing can be done for a patient until a doctor signs off on it...no medicine, no procedure, no food even until the doc signs off on the diet. Couple all this with charts at the office and all the prescriptions a doctor does in a day....its a surprise they dont all have carpal tunnel.