Decided to test a former pharm tech.
i guess the p and l are the important bits and the rest can just be inferred, since paracetamol is very commonly used and they’d get tired writing it in detail every time. other more specialized drugs with p___l (or close to it) as its name would have more squiggles i assume.
It’s (shorthand)[teeline.online]. It says “prc(t)ml” with the p being in the obvious spot (though it should be just a downward line), the r is the diagonal line after it, the c is the little curl, the t should be more pronounced, but it should be a horizontal line slightly above the rest, the m is a concave-down swoosh, and the l is the final curl. No vowels b/c they’re largely redundant.
I get the L, but how did you get the P? At best it’s an O, at worst it’s a D.
It’s a super common prescription and most doctors probably couldn’t spell it offhand. Combined with dosing info it would be more obvious. Also if they do happen to be wrong it’s unlikely to actually cause harm with acetaminophen/paracetamol.
Edit: another benefit is disguising to a patient that demands something to take. Essentially a placebo.
In addition, there’s a psychological phenomenon where our brains only need the first and last letter of a word in the right place, and all the right letters in between in any order, to suss out a word. Our familiarity with a lngaauge will put it together, so presumably the same is true for healthcare providers’ common words.
Note: I included an example of this in my comment
Funny, but also not. Just Googled because I couldn’t remember:
“According to the Institute of Medicine, physician’s illegible notes lead to approximately 7,000 deaths annually.”
Seems unreal. Even if it was half that…that’s a lot of people. If I was getting prescribed drugs, I want it LEGIBLE. Typed up would be great. I just don’t trust that shit, and neither should any of you.
some said i was destined to be a doctor with my handwriting and family. i decided to break the cycle and become a videographer that barely scrapes by. my family is… they like the videos i make of our get togethers…
at least i haven’t accidentally killed anyone.
This is likely why I haven’t seen my doctor write anything for over a decade. Literally everything is done on the computer now. There’s a rolling computer in each room. The only handwriting I saw was by the nurses on a big whiteboard when my wife was giving birth. Just to pass notes and write times.
Watching my doctor fill out my digital chart to avoid these spelling mistakes….
me: I take guanfacine
Doctor: oh ok cool you take mucinex?
me: no, not guanfanesin, guanfacine.
Doctor: oh, ok. Got it
Doctor: ….
Me: ….
Doctor: and what milligram mucinex do you take?
This literally just happened to me at the doctor’s office. I brought up that I’m interested in trying guanfacine to help with my ADHD and blood pressure and my new doctor tried to correct me… I should probably look for a new doctor.
Back in the day I used to work at one of the largest hospitals in the US. In my last year there they had started having doctors record their notes, issues order, and prescriptions, on an audio file, using and issued microphone. Then that stuff was sent to a group of people transcribing everything in text. these scribes would also fill out forms for the orders and prescriptions. they did this in response to a series of lawsuits they lost badly.
Here in the UK and (if I’m remembering correctly) back home in Canada, I have always been handed a print out of my prescription with a signature.
Meanwhile, here in Sweden, when I get a perscription, my doctor types on his computer for five min, I then walk to any pharmacy, hand them my ID, of they have it they will offer a cheaper alternative, if they don’t have any of the medicine, they will tell me which pharmacy does, if none has it they will order it for me.
Same here in Italy, but it took COVID to get them off their asses and finish the system for this that was already 90% there
Works for a couple of years in Poland. You give them your personal identity number and a 4 digit number you get from a doctor (or you can go to a government website and get it from your perscriptions directly) and you get your perscription. We also have websites dedicated to finding medication, available to everyone. You can even sometimes reserve it online.
Looks kinda the same
p-------------l
