# Doctors are literally writers. Period.



## emperfectus (Apr 16, 2021)

For our program, we tend to have several traditional means, but the fact remains that for patients admitted in a ward, there is always a daily and scheduled report on their vital signs and other observations.

In our case, we would have to write them down manually and certainly takes plenty of willpower when it can become mundane...still, there is a literature structure and style for the patient historial clinical reports...

Then we can be called our own kind of writer I suppose?
Wouldn't you agree?

Do you think it's an important skill to develop to a certain level of professionalism?

And what do you think of this strange, true anecdote?
" I had requested a letter of approval of who would be my mentoring doctor for the ear-nose-throat specialty ward, because here, you can have the fortunate option to volunteer and observe even from third year of general medicine studies. Apparently the head of the department was to be my mentor, but he seemed to not be able to write out a simplistic formal letter of statement that he would be my mentor! It found that strange, but perhaps because he rarely wrote such? In the end, I came by the fourth time to pick up and in the moment of about 5 minutes, I just dictated the simple phrasing and words and he signed and stamped and done!"
I wonder why it was so hard? He kept insisting that he "has no time" yet the process took just 5 minutes...
Are we separating 'writing' in some high-level connotation sense, from just simple communication??
I find this concerning...


----------

