Documentation

A reminder of why I liked documentation before I was told everyone hated it, because when I’m sick and tired and have notes due I need to remember why I like it.

Reasons I like documentation

1. I have bad memory

I will forget everything about a patient. It’s not because I don’t care. It’s common for me to forget things about myself that my friends remember. I don’t even remember what I’ve done on my birthday.

2. I apparently like organizing more than I thought

I think I’ve had to learn to be more organized than most people because of the memory issues and confusion that my disorders can cause. And because of the ease of use/navigation/understanding that comes after organizing, it feels like a good accomplishment and use of time. This is very surprising considering my Mom always yelled at me for leaving my room so messy. I guess I’m better with organizing information rather than my physical space.

3. It shows the work I’ve done

It’s also another sense of accomplishment to put to writing the things I achieved and did.

Bonus

This isn’t strictly about why I like documentation, but the whole reason for it is legal of course. To keep clinicians accountable with doing our jobs right, but also protecting myself as a clinician if a legal showdown happens. This part isn’t as fun to think about, but having a sense of satisfaction with showing your work in writing doesn’t have to be about ego as much as it is about safety and accountability.

Things that make me hate documentation

Hands down, EMR

EMRs can be stupidly inefficient to use. Too many buttons, too many tabbing in and out, too much clicking just to create exercises and add to HEPs. Too many clicking just to add measurements and sets and reps. Too much looking through a long list of things just to find what you need to write about. If people who developed EMRs just focused on the beauty of text-boxes and making them few, I wouldn’t be malding over clicking a thousand times and going through a bunch of tabs looking for what I need. EMRs are without a doubt the worst part of the documentation experience. 10 minutes spent struggling with buttons could be solved if we were just allowed to type everything.

The one thing I DO like all the clicking for is outcome measures, because I suck at basic arithmetic and it automatically calculates the score for me.

So whenever I say I hate documentation, what I’m actually saying is I hate going through finnicky knobs and portals.