Why Doctors Have Bad Handwriting! - Real Doctor Explains

One of the most common stereotypes is that doctors have bad handwriting. But how does this happen? How do doctors get through so many years of schooling, yet still have illegible handwriting? Here's my take on why doctors have such bad handwriting and what can be done about it.

Reason 1: Quantity
- Doctors have to write out hundreds of pieces of documentation each day. What better way to save time than to write a bit quicker?

Reason 2: Short form
- For the untrained eye, doctor's handwriting may look like scribble because it often contains many short forms and contracted sentences.

Reason 3: Deterioration
- As time goes on, the sheer volume of handwritten notes and persisting time pressure leads to gradual deterioration in the quality of handwriting

Reason 4: Visibility
- One the main reasons for the stereotype is that Doctor's handwriting is incredibly visible. Everybody can see it from patients to other doctors, and people care because if a doctor has bad handwriting, it has some real consequences. So once the impression is formed that doctors have bad handwriting, the stereotype is confirmed every time you see a doctor with bad handwriting.

#badhandwriting #docunlock

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[DocUnlock]

This episode was filmed at Port Dickson in Malaysia. Got a question? Let me know!

[xfrmppz]

My teacher told me that I wrote like a doctor and I took that as a compliment. Now realizing how doctors write makes me doubt that it was a compliment.

[rajaputra]

I always thought that doctor handwriting is like some sort of secret handwriting that only readable for the pharmacist

[duydang]

Once I asked my doctor to rewrite the prescription because the pharmacist could not read the medicine name. And the doctor has to stop for a few second to reconize what he had writen :D

[doc]

I had bad handwriting since childhood and today M a doctor!🤘😂

[poggersbutthole]

Nobody:

Guy everytime he finishes a sentence: *Sit down, stand up, move left, move right, look up, look to the left, squat, sit at stairs, stand up again*

[reza]

I am an experienced pharmacist and i have to tell you we are very displeased with doctors handwriting, we have alot of writing and report as well and just the same and even more impatient patients, that s not an excuse. Writing four medication on a prescription doesn’t take that much time to write like an educated human and not like a baboon.
Sincerely
Your pharmacist

[hethen]

After every part of speaking...
*"ight imma head out"*

[kolin]

My doctors handwriting is just a line with bumps

[JohnSmith-pmzb]

Fully agree. I recently looked back at my study notes from second year med school in 2001. And compared it to my writing as a consultant in 2020. The degradation - was worse than that of a Parkinson's patient... And great analysis of the problem in the video btw!

[astraeanatsuki]

Oh I had a bad experience, my father is a doctor and of course he has bad handwriting! I remember in 3rd grade we had a class test and after we got the result, we had to get it signed by our parent and submit it back to the teacher. I normally tell my mother to sign but she had gone out that day so I asked my father to sign it. The next day TEACHER SCOLDED ME SO MUCH! She told me I was lying and faking signature in front of the whole class and humiliated me! I kept saying that it was my fathers hand but she wouldn’t believe me. I still remember she told me “No educated man can write like this, stop putting blame on your father” and the absurd thing was I had full score on the test so why would I even lie☹️🥺

[lordnul]

I always thought the bad handwriting was entirely on purpose to make it difficult to forge as possible.

[janelee]

You did it again, DocUnlock! You answered a question I've always wondered about but had no chance to ask. I thought doctors wrote badly on purpose to prevent their patients from reading what they've written, especially referral letters! By the way, your videography techniques are getting more impressive!

[Me-lbnd]

I grew up in the 1950s and went to a Catholic grade school. The nuns taught us both print and cursive writing, and we even used pens and inkwells for our practice. My handwriting is still very legible thanks to their insistance on good writing. Damn shame that kids don't learn that now.

[Dr_Holiday]

It even got to the point where people think the worst your handwriting is the better doctor you are.

[flawed.beauty]

My teacher asked me if I wanted to be a doctor because of my handwriting. I answered him that I'm not, but look I am now, taking a medical course and wanting to be a doctor. LOL!😂

[jmm]

When i was younger the doctor told me its a special short hand they learned and the pharmancy reads to distinguish legit written pharmacy prescriptions from a doctor and if was written legibly denotes a forge prescription , tho nowadays you think they just use a electric card method that the patient can just take to a pharmacy and the pharmacy can pull the prescription from the encrypted electronic card data intheir own terminal to show exactly what the prescription was, than no more special training for pharmacy to read the illegible

[christopher]

"Why take 5 seconds to sign something when you can do it in 5 milliseconds"
I'm more like, who tf signs something that long

[sonyamonroe]

I've heard that people that have terrible hand writing are really smart

[HoaNguyen-uivg]

I work in histology and have to decipher doctors' handwritten clinical notes to dictate in my surgical descriptions, and still find it almost impossible sometimes to put down something that ain't gibberish. Any tips on how to be better at this?