Should spelling count?

[betc]

the electronic notes at my facility are full of words misspelled words. The embarrasing thing for me is these are degree nurses, BSN and MSN.

Does this effect the image of nursing as a profession?

looking for comments,opinions and/or references.

[leosasha]

I love books therefor I own a dictionary. My Mother gave me one that weighs 10 lbs. I have a broad vocabulary from using the thing most of my life. Rarely use spellcheck but consider it a valuable tool. Jess, your posted quote by Mother Theresa is one of my favorites of her. What a hoot!

[Hunny320]

Spelling absolutely counts. We haven't moved to the new computerized charting yet so we still have to struggle to read the chicken scratch hand writing on many of the physicians. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out

[island40]

I can't tell you how many times I was told by nursing students that they had already passed their English courses and that I should not penalize them for gramatical errors. Their essays "bled" with mechanical errors and most failed the few essay assignments due to lazy errors such as the computer spell check changing CNA to CAN. (C.N.A. doesn't cause this problem) I am not teaching right now but agree that college educated professionals should communicate in both oral and written forms proficiantly. How many times have you heard a nurse say "orientate?" This is not a word in the English language but I hear it all the time. I do believe that most errors in memos and e-mail are typographical in nature.

[AtomicWoman]

I am a former college English composition teacher. So yes, spelling and grammatical errors make me cringe. My students used to ask me why I was such a stickler for proper spelling and grammar. I would tell them, "Because bad spelling and grammar make you look like a moron. And you're not a moron, right?". To which they would reply, "Right." LOL I tried to impress on them that their crappy writing could be the first AND last impression of them a potential employer would receive.

Having said all that, someone will now point out an error in my post. LOL!

[RN BSN 2009]

in the court of law it makes a difference!

[smcabee]

I try to avoid spelling mistakes but we always get a chuckle at the non medical admissons folks when they put in a diagnosis on a patient. A few examples we got were:

1. Acistaly for Asystole

2. Sinkopee for Syncope

3. Unstable lady parts for unstable angina although thats technically not a mispelling.

4. And my favorite mursaw for MRSA

And yes spelling should count as others have posted there are too many tests, drugs and other things that are very similar out there.

[Katie82, RN]

Correct spelling and syntax are measures of professionalism. The problem could be laziness. Perhaps these nurses think the Spell-Check Fairy is going to come along behind them and fix everything.

[AtomicWoman]

I try to avoid spelling mistakes but we always get a chuckle at the non medical admissons folks when they put in a diagnosis on a patient. A few examples we got were:

1. Acistaly for Asystole

2. Sinkopee for Syncope

3. Unstable lady parts for unstable angina although thats technically not a mispelling.

4. And my favorite mursaw for MRSA

Thanks for the laugh! Maybe you should keep a collection of these and publish them some day. :) I personally like sinkopee. Although unstable lady parts could be pretty scary! :chuckle

[NursKris82]

I went to a seminar on nursing law and the speaker was a nurse and a lawyer and she said spelling does count. If yoy spell bad, they'll think your care was bad. May not be true, probably isn't, but that's the idea the jury will get. That being said- I try to watch my spelling and how I word things when I chart, but we all make mistakes.

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

As a culture and as a human being, we have an established reading and writing system. That system changes. Change is good. I love change. Having a stagnant language means the culture is stagnant. Stagnant things die. That is bad. When the members of that culture are too lazy to attempt to learn to express themselves in a manner that reflects intellect in that culture, it is good.

People who dont care if they spell words the wrong way all the time are lazy. No one is perfect, but when you are charting about a patient, those words have to affectively describe what you are seeing, so when another reads, they can get the image of what you describe. In healthcare, the RN has to be at the forefront of this. When I am at the Catalina Wine Mixer, people often ask me about culture. I tell them that culture started with the spoken word and then evolved into the written world..

A couple or more years ago, on another site I used to frequent, there was this poster that - well, the account may have been made by a human, but the content of the posts was determined by some weird program that would put the most amazing, incoherent crap into each post. It derailed nearly every thread that it graced with its presence. This post here, reminds me of that experience. Either that, or the poster is actually drinking too much of that wine. Seriously, I can't understand this post.

[oncnursemsn]

Potato is to potatoe as tomato is to:

A) tomatoes

B) tomato paste

C) tomatoe

D) salsa

Extra credit: Which is the correct spelling?

The answer I believe is C. The "correct spelling" is B.

BTW, what's the extra credit?

[patrick1rn, MSN, RN, NP]

A couple or more years ago, on another site I used to frequent, there was this poster that - well, the account may have been made by a human, but the content of the posts was determined by some weird program that would put the most amazing, incoherent crap into each post. It derailed nearly every thread that it graced with its presence. This post here, reminds me of that experience. Either that, or the poster is actually drinking too much of that wine. Seriously, I can't understand this post.

Dear INDY,

Nope, I am a human being. My point in a nutshell: The written word is part of what makes our culture unique. If anyone cares about our culture anymore anyway.