Executive Summary
There is no doubt that skillful writing is critically important in the majority of fields. However, usually, students concentrate on the main subjects during studying in the university and neglect the courses of secondary importance. High-quality writing skills are also critically important for Pre-Med students looking to become doctors. The doctors need to have advanced writing skills to be able to qualify for the profession. The doctors have to be very well-rounded in terms the liberal arts and sciences, but writing may be one of the most important additional skills. If a doctor does not have adequate writing skills, he will not be able to accurately and appropriately write down descriptions – which must be very detailed – of his or her patients. What is more, the personal growth on the career ladder is impossible without profound writing skills. The last but not the least considerable reason is the fact that scientific impact on the future development of the medical sphere is impossible without qualified writing of the doctor.
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Introduction
Usually, students that are planning to become doctors cannot even imagine the amount of writing in the everyday routine of their chosen profession. For instance, a doctor needs to be able to understand all of his patient’s symptoms and needs. While this doesn’t relate to writing directly, the doctor must be able to write down all of the information in a clear manner on a document which is then updated into a computer system that is stored in the customer’s very own data file. One may not think this is a very big deal when it comes to how big a role writing plays in a doctor’s profession, but it obviously is when factoring in how many customers or patients a doctor receives in a given day or week or year. If a patient comes in and has symptoms of early onset cancer, the doctor must be able to articulate this in the document. While it may be easy for the doctor to remember this information within a week, he or she must be able to remember this information the next time this patient comes in, which could be in a year. Therefore, it’s extremely important for a doctor to be able to write down detailed notes about the patient (Berwick, 1996). If the doctor fails to do so he or she may not be adequately prepared for when the patient comes in, it becomes a considerable problem. The patients expect doctors to have a treatment plan when it comes to their symptoms.
In addition, the personal career promotion is critically important for each worker. However, the doctors need to realize that no matter how skillful they are in their profession, in order to get promoted, they need to have profound writing skills. For instance, the chief doctor in the hospital has a lot of documents to fill and sign every day. That is why in order to be promoted on the career ladder, the writing skills have to be constantly improved by the doctors.
Findings
According to Louise Aronson, a well-regarded doctor, physicians of all types must know how to write. She says that a lack of knowledge regarding writing fundamentals leads to “medical errors, readmissions, and death” (Aronson, 2013). Aronson goes onto say that a doctor must know how to write if he or she is to place the patient in the best hands and in the best care. A doctor who has no clue about the ins and outs of writing should not be a primary physician because it is too risky regarding the well-being of the patient and puts their well-being in jeopardy, which is a breach of the doctor-patient relationship.
It is also critically important to lay the stress on the time spent by doctors during writing and working with the documents. A report by Forbes found that doctors usually “waste” two-thirds of their time doing paperwork and filling out documents (Lee, 2016). While Forbes describes it as wasting time, it is still time that is necessary for the doctor to fill out the documents of the patient. This report obviously points to the fact that doctors write a lot; in fact, for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, he spends two more hours doing paperwork for that said patient. What is more, the higher working position the doctor has, the more time has to be spent writing.
Another important argument in favor of writing skills importance is the scientific impact of doctors on the future healthcare and medical sphere development. As global disease biology major and a pre-med student, students are often put through very rigorous writing assignments, and even senior practicum which gives students wide exposure of scientific writing while they get to involve in scientific research. This requires students to be able to write down what took place in the experiment, what methods the researchers used, and the data and analysis. So, all the science students that aspire to go to health-related schools and programs are made sure while they are undergrads learn and master their writing skills by putting them through rigorous writing assignments and research tasks in order to pass the program and become a good doctor. What is more, doctors may write the scientific research papers on the basis of their practical work. Such scientific impact has both a positive effect on the doctor as well as the medical sphere in general. However, writing scientific research papers definitely require profound writing skills.
A statement of the Medical Schools Council describes that developing writing skills can actually aid in the advancement of the ambitions of becoming a doctor and the ranking in the doctorate field. The ability to not only offer verbal guidance but written guidance as well as help “patients understand their conditions” and empowers the patients to make informed decisions about their own health (Malik, 2017). At the same time, the article states the point of view that poor writing skills lead to malpractice and poor prescribing which can be lost within the bevy of paperwork those pharmacies must deal with. Therefore, it is important to have a paper trail as well as a human one with patients, as a doctor must be able to investigate up prior history with patients.
Conclusions and Analysis
Thus, taking everything into account the conclusion can be made that writing skills are critically important to develop and improve in different working fields. The medical and healthcare industry is not an exception. Doctors need to improve their writing skills constantly in order to fulfill their duties properly. First of all, doctors spend much time describing the history of the disease, as well as the medical treatment description. It has a direct impact on the patients, doctors, and pharmacists. What is more, profound writing skills are important for doctors in order to be promoted on the career ladder. The last but not the least reason to improve writing skills for doctors is the opportunity to scientific impact on the industry in general.
- Aronson, L. (2013, May 21). Why physicians need to write. Retrieved from https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/05/physicians-write-2.html
- Berwick, D. M., &Winickoff, D. E. (1996). The truth about doctors’ handwriting: a prospective study. Bmj, 313(7072), 1657-1658.
- Lee, B. Y. (2016, September 11). Doctors Wasting Over Two-Thirds Of Their Time Doing Paperwork. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2016/09/07/doctors- wasting-over-two-thirds-of-their-time-doing-paperwork/
- Malik, B. (2017). The value of writing skills as an addition to the medical school curriculum. Advances in Medical Education and Practice, 8, 525–526. http://doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S140585
