You’ve squinted at a doctor’s prescription and thought, “Is this medicine or ancient hieroglyphs?” You’re not imagining it. Doctors’ handwriting is a national hazard. In punjab and Haryana, a judge literally couldn’t read a report during a bail hearing—and called it “shaking the conscience of the court.”
Yes, your life literally depends on someone else deciphering chicken scratch.
1️⃣ Medical School: The Innocent Beginning of Chaos
• Endless notes, essays, and exams.
• Time pressure destroys neat handwriting.
• Some doctors never wrote legibly in english from the start.
Fact: Doctors start okay—but med school turns neat writing into scribble art.
2️⃣ Overwork = Illegibility on Steroids
• 100+ patients per shift in government hospitals.
• Prescription-writing becomes speed over clarity.
• Familiarity with pharmacists excuses “scribble mode.”
Result: What should be medicine instructions becomes a puzzle.
3️⃣ The Pharmacist’s Psychic Skill Test
• Chemists memorize handwriting patterns.
• If they can’t read it? They call the doctor, the patient, or guess.
Reality: Guesswork determines life-saving doses.
4️⃣ AI Is Coming… But Humans Still Die
• Tools like Prescription Reader and google prototypes exist.
• They can decode scribbles—but they aren’t everywhere.
Translation: You still can’t blindly trust AI yet.
5️⃣ Doctors Don’t Just Hate Penmanship—They’re Overloaded
• Older doctors aren’t tech-savvy.
• Private clinics lack printing infrastructure.
• Rushing through dozens of patients daily crushes any chance of neat writing.
Truth: Bad handwriting isn’t laziness. It’s systemic pressure.
6️⃣ How to Stop chicken Scratch from Killing
• Mandatory printed prescriptions everywhere.
• Drug names in all-caps for legibility.
• Scribes or wallet PLATFORM' target='_blank' title='digital-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW'>digital assistants to write as doctors examine.
• Reduce overload—because stress = illegible prescriptions.
• high court approved. Medical Council approved. Common sense approved.
7️⃣ The Grim Reality
• Unlike other professionals, doctors’ scribbles reach the public daily.
• Objective exams reduce handwriting practice—future doctors may write worse.
Bottom line: Every illegible prescription is a ticking time bomb.
Closing Punchline (Mic Drop)
Doctors save lives—but their handwriting could take them away. Until prescriptions are printed, capitalized, and double-checked, the chicken scratch epidemic will continue—one illegible note at a time.
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