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.

[JohnR,RN,CMSRN]

I don't disregard that spelling can lead to mistakes...but then that is also where we as Nurses need to be questioning why a pt is receiving a certain drug or treatment for their condition since we are the number one pt advocate correct:coollook:

And I also felt this thread needed some levity added to it:D

[ambil]

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too cna yuo raed tihs? olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht i cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht i was rdanieg. the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at cmabrigde uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. the rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. azanmig huh? yaeh and i awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

what a riot. i could actually read this without much of a problem. i still think that spelling is important, because we simply do notice the mistakes even if we understand what is being said. it says something about our person, our character too, when we make lots of mistakes and knowingly leave them, know what i mean?

[betc]

thank you to all who responded. I appreciate knowing my profession does believe what we "write" or document matters.

I have always believed, subjective and objective information should be documented in such a way, as an artist puts images on canvas, nurses should strive to be descriptive with documentation.

I believe our profession is tainted with poor charting. I am guilty of not taking this serious at times duing my 35+ years.

[LadysSolo]

As others have pointed out, and I will repeat, you only have to go and give a deposition ONCE and have your charting (and spelling) picked apart by an opposing attorney to realize that spelling and grammar count. I am an LPN instructor, and a good speller, and I make them do it correctly. I use my own experience as an example. But go ahead and risk your patient's life and your license if you want - otherwise, use correct spelling and grammar!

[rngolfer53]

truckerratt, that is a hoot. :) I have seen it before and yes, I can read the entire paragraph pretty quickly. That's because my mind (and probably a lot of other people's minds) looks for general patterns of words and can pick the word out even with a bunch of letters in the middle mixed-up. Of course, that doesn't make the writer of such gibberish look smart! LOL And of course, spelling errors could lead to mistakes.

I can read the entire paragraph, but I won't unless I have to. Plus I will come away with a rather poor opinion of a writer who would leave such a mess for others to decipher.