How to Understand a Doctor's Handwriting: 4 Tips to Help You Read a Diagnosis or Prescription
Many people have encountered a situation where the prescription written by the doctor was written so illegibly that it was impossible to understand.
Some even joke that “hieroglyphs” in prescriptions and diagnoses are a mandatory requirement for obtaining a medical university diploma.
However, other medical personnel, as well as pharmacists, have a wonderful “gift” for deciphering such manuscripts.
Want the same? Use the tips in this article – they will help you find out what exactly the doctor wrote.
1. The first thing to do is to study the structure of the text. Usually, symptoms are listed at the very beginning. If you see the word "anamnesis" with ellipses, most likely, the manifestations of your disease are listed below, while the abbreviation DS is used for drug dosage.
2. Study punctuation marks carefully – commas, periods and dashes. This way you will be able to separate words and even count the number of letters to check your guesses later.
3. Pay attention to the consonants. Usually the letters "v", "d", "r" and "f" are easy to spot because of the length of their tails. If you notice Latin letters, you are most likely looking at the name of the drug.
4. Try to find familiar words. Even if they are in different sentences or parts of the text, this can help you understand the general meaning of the notes.
