Well, as my screen name says, I lurk-- a lot! Anyway, I am preparing to write my final paper for nursing school, it is a wrap-up of our final preceptorship and our impressions of the nursing workforce we are about to enter. We are supposed to share our thoughts about furthering our education, how we have witnessed nurses being treated in the workplace, how we felt our school experience was, etc. My paper has kinda veered off on a little tangent (which I am probably going to remove) because one thing that has stuck out in my mind is the way I have seen my fellow nursing students communicate on our class web program, and I see it here on a daily basis as well. I am talking about basic communication skills as far as the written word is concerned.
Is it a trend today, or are my classmates really so deficient in language skills that they can not write a professional, comprehendable sentence? I am not talking about spelling errors, gosh knows we all make those-- I am talking about stuff like this:
"i dont know what u all r talkinabout, but there crazy the way they grade us in nursing school!"
Some of my classmates actually respond to discussion questions from our instructor in this manner. Whatever, to each his own--but my question is, how can a person be taken seriously as a professional if they can not write in basic comprehensible language? And in reading the message board here, I am kinda stunned how many times I just can't understand what the heck someone is trying to say because it just doesn't make any sense!
The more important question to me is this: Do people write like this in real life? Are nurses out there writing notes like this, and communicating with other professionals in this manner? Or is it just something people do on message boards? Do any of you run into this in the workplace?
I'm not talking about simple spelling and/or grammar errors(Tweety, I love your sig about spelling!:)). In fact, in 1st semester my instructor gave me a 98% instead of a 100% on a paper, and she made a note to me that my "grammer was incorrect in one sentence.":uhoh3: Yes, she made a spelling error while correcting me, but I got her point. But if she had written this instead: "ur grammer wuz not write," I probably would have not understood what she was referring to.
So, do nurses communicate this way in the workplace, or is it just confined to the internet?
*** I'm not looking to make fun of spelling or grammar errors, we all make them, I really am just curious if this is the way nurses communicate in real life!***
I agree, that's exactly what I was trying to avoid-- I am not trying to pick on people about misspellings and typos, not my intent. It is silly when a whole thread gets off course because someone's picking on other's typos. I know I am guilty of typing out something quickly and making errors. I can even usually even follow the "internet slang" that goes on here and other places.
I'm struggling to explain what I am talking about better....I don't want to post any examples. It's just so much of nursing is paperwork, documentation, and more and more communicating with peers via email and letters. And it scares me to see my schoolmates communicating so poorly with our instructors, I just wonder how it all translates to the workforce. I wonder if maybe I am just an old fogey and this is how people DO communicate professionally anymore.
I understand and agree totally with your original post.
I also understand your frustration at not being entirely understood.
I have noticed that misunderstanding posters' messages is a regular occurrence on this board.
People often just read the beginning of a post, or just skim through it. The frequent result is that they miss the point, and then have a knee-jerk defensive reaction. These posters often end up typing posts defending something that was never attacked in the first place. This happens to me regularly here.
Several of my threads have morphed into augments over things that I've never stated. Many times, I've given up trying to explain myself over and over again. Now, I just let arguments over things I've never said go on without me.
Anyway, to address your original point-
You are not an "old fogy." You want to see standards adhered to. These things do have an impact in the work-place.
I have noticed two major types of ignorance when it comes to work place communications. The first is just plain ignorance, along with poor education and literacy issues. For instance, I see terrible charting and spelling, as well as mispronunciation and incorrect use of medical terminology at work. However, more often UAPs who are the culprits, rather than nurses, in my experience. I've seen staff give pts written instructions which were composed in 'Net slang.
I've also come across nurses who are surprisingly ignorant. For example; I've seen nurses chart the word "prostrate" for prostate. I've also had more than one nurse argue with me saying that a pt who is allergic to NSAIDS can't take APAP.
I've seen misspellings on pt charts that are so bad as to post a danger to pts. Recently, I read a typed notation in a chart listing "penerkellen" as one of a pt's med allergies. The unit sec'y had made the entry. This case, however, is just plain ignorance. I think a lot of things like this happen at work because so many people without any medical education are involved.
Lord knows, many Americans could benefit from improved spelling and grammar skills. I know I could.
However, using 'Net slang and short-cut spelling in academic and professional communications is totally inappropriate.
So, if I need to spell it out, then I guess I will. If your nurse doesn't know what propofol does, then I guess she doesn't know what it is compatible with, nor what the side affects are, and yet she is working in your critical care unit& titrating said drug with lots of autonomy and taking care of your mother. Who cares if she can write a compete sentence. You think I'm being harsh, but i'm not. There are many nurses who are "pushed through" who I wouldn't want taking care of me (should that have been whom??)You are just seeing the start of disappointment. I have worked the field for many years, and to hear you complain about writing is a joke to me. Don't get me wrong. I 'm in a masters program and know what academia involves. However, I will never forget what nursing is. Those that forget to care, and think it it isn't necessrary due to their education, forget what nursing is.
I fail to see how poor grammar and poor clinical knowledge cannot co-exist. From my experience, it is most often the student or nurse who has trouble expressing themselves on paper who also have trouble remembering which drug does what. Being borderline illiterate can often be a symptom of general academic weakness. I have had students who are stronger clinically than in written assignments but the ones who were horrific with charting, spelling, etc. were usually weak in all areas. So I wouldn't argue that it does not matter if they cannot write a complete sentence. Poor communication kills patients daily and may be a symptom of global incompetence.
I fail to see how poor grammar and poor clinical knowledge cannot co-exist. From my experience, it is most often the student or nurse who has trouble expressing themselves on paper who also have trouble remembering which drug does what. Being borderline illiterate can often be a symptom of general academic weakness. I have had students who are stronger clinically than in written assignments but the ones who were horrific with charting, spelling, etc. were usually weak in all areas. So I wouldn't argue that it does not matter if they cannot write a complete sentence. Poor communication kills patients daily and may be a symptom of global incompetence.
Very well said. I don't care how someone writes their papers. It's a peeve of mine to read horribly written papers, but I won't lose sleep over it. I hope I've recovered myself from the grammar Nazi thing a few pages back.
I believe that those who cannot write a paper well have a hard time communicating effectively with people. Think back to undergrad for a moment. We all had the one kid in our class whose papers made our brains hurt and when they went to read the paper aloud they had a hard time with it. Jumping back to nursing, how is someone who has literacy problems going to act when they are given information to tell a patient, compounded by the fact that they're stressed out, tired or angry? It will be difficult for some of them.
It may not be a life-threatening issue if they have literacy problems, but it could become a professional issue. If I were in an emergency room and my nurse was stumbling on words while trying to communicate something to me I would likely question their intelligence. It's just human nature to question it. If I had a nurse who I perceived as very intelligent I would feel better leaving the ER. If I was left wondering what the heck they just told me...I think I've made my point.
I am an old fogey myself, so it takes too much brain power for me to remember and decipher all the 'c u l8tr' abbreviations on emails so I tend to keep writing in longhand, even on emails. But I have no real problem with people using email 'shorthand' for communication! As for people writing how they speak, they WILL & DO, nothing new on the planet about the butchering of the English language by most students these days. Add to that all the professionals you will encounter for whom English is a second language. I have to say, they may butcher English, but they do so much better than I would do in THEIR language. LOL. So my advice: Get used to it and get over it. You will have bigger battles to fight in the field of nursing!
Heh. Talk about your .sig being on topic. I think that was the most literate thing Mickey Rivers ever said.
:) Mickey is definitely one of the greatest sources for quotes. While this one is not his goofiest, I thought that the nurses here would appreciate it.
Well, as my screen name says, I lurk-- a lot! Anyway, I am preparing to write my final paper for nursing school, it is a wrap-up of our final preceptorship and our impressions of the nursing workforce we are about to enter. We are supposed to share our thoughts about furthering our education, how we have witnessed nurses being treated in the workplace, how we felt our school experience was, etc. My paper has kinda veered off on a little tangent (which I am probably going to remove) because one thing that has stuck out in my mind is the way I have seen my fellow nursing students communicate on our class web program, and I see it here on a daily basis as well. I am talking about basic communication skills as far as the written word is concerned.
Is it a trend today, or are my classmates really so deficient in language skills that they can not write a professional, comprehendable sentence? I am not talking about spelling errors, gosh knows we all make those-- I am talking about stuff like this:
"i dont know what u all r talkinabout, but there crazy the way they grade us in nursing school!"
Some of my classmates actually respond to discussion questions from our instructor in this manner. Whatever, to each his own--but my question is, how can a person be taken seriously as a professional if they can not write in basic comprehensible language? And in reading the message board here, I am kinda stunned how many times I just can't understand what the heck someone is trying to say because it just doesn't make any sense!
The more important question to me is this: Do people write like this in real life? Are nurses out there writing notes like this, and communicating with other professionals in this manner? Or is it just something people do on message boards? Do any of you run into this in the workplace?
I'm not talking about simple spelling and/or grammar errors(Tweety, I love your sig about spelling!:)). In fact, in 1st semester my instructor gave me a 98% instead of a 100% on a paper, and she made a note to me that my "grammer was incorrect in one sentence.":uhoh3: Yes, she made a spelling error while correcting me, but I got her point. But if she had written this instead: "ur grammer wuz not write," I probably would have not understood what she was referring to.
So, do nurses communicate this way in the workplace, or is it just confined to the internet?
*** I'm not looking to make fun of spelling or grammar errors, we all make them, I really am just curious if this is the way nurses communicate in real life!***
Unfortunately, many, many people cannot compose a logical sentence or paragraph.
It's not only a matter of deficient grammar and spelling knowledge, but a lack of organiztional and thinking skills, imho.
I was around in the pre-PC days, when making corrections to the written communication was much more difficult than it is now...............yet notes, letters, memos, etc. were far better than what one sees today in composition as well as presentation.
A good chunk of the blame should attach to the education system, which sends HS graduates into the world incapable of making change for a dollar and incapable of writing a cogent letter. Any semblance of logical and critical thinking seems to be lacking from the curriculum.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
as far as nurse's documentation is concerned, composing notes in grammatical sentences would take too much time. brevity as well as clarity is important. (and let's not forget that perfect sentences can be maddenly obtuse.) however, it should be obvious what is meant.
i'm all for brevity -- nurses are too busy to be writing a grammatically perfect and spelling error-free note on every patient every time. one thing i've noticed, though, is the use of "standard abbreviations" that aren't so standard. acronyms that mean one thing to a ccu nurse may well mean something else to an ob nurse, and when we pass that pre-eclamptic pregnant woman with pulmonary hypertension back and forth between our two services, it the differences may be important!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
what about the tos section on foul language?
if it is not deliberate disrespect for the others, then it could be the inability to express a thought without spicing it indiscriminately with foul language. while strong words have their place and time, a public forum in which polite conduct has been requested is not the time or the place for them.
suebird :)
i have to laugh. i've been addicted to general hospital for years. it is fascinating the way those characters can tell each other off in no uncertain terms without using one foul word! something to aspire to!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i've seen both of these (the apostrophe 's' and their/they're/there) in the new york times, in a headline ticker on cnn, and on product packaging. and yes, when i read a document that's even remotely formal (an email to colleagues on a work-related topic, for instance) and it's rife with such mistakes, it affects my opinion of the author's intelligence.
.
and it affects my opinion of the author's attention to detail.
The abbreviations of which you speak are akin to slang; I doubt their use indicates a lack of basic language skills in your classmates. I am surprised that they'd use these shortcuts in an educational venue, though. I don't think it has a thing to do with failure to proofread, and I'd be surprised if they're not able to produce a well written document when they feel it is needed. It seems the difference of opinion is when it is needed.
Heh. In high school, I once had to peer-edit a term paper that had the most atrocious grammar and spelling, half of which was netspeak, and contained no punctuation save ellipses. I used so much red ink that it appeared a pig had been shot in the near vicinity. Sadly, this sort of thing occurred more than once.
Anyway, I am preparing to write my final paper for nursing school, it is a wrap-up of our final preceptorship and our impressions of the nursing workforce we are about to enter. We are supposed to share our thoughts about furthering our education, how we have witnessed nurses being treated in the workplace, how we felt our school experience was, etc. My paper has kinda veered off on a little tangent (which I am probably going to remove) because one thing that has stuck out in my mind is the way I have seen my fellow nursing students communicate on our class web program, and I see it here on a daily basis as well. I am talking about basic communication skills as far as the written word is concerned.
Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN
2 Articles; 3,563 Posts
I understand and agree totally with your original post.
I also understand your frustration at not being entirely understood.
I have noticed that misunderstanding posters' messages is a regular occurrence on this board.
People often just read the beginning of a post, or just skim through it. The frequent result is that they miss the point, and then have a knee-jerk defensive reaction. These posters often end up typing posts defending something that was never attacked in the first place. This happens to me regularly here.
Several of my threads have morphed into augments over things that I've never stated. Many times, I've given up trying to explain myself over and over again. Now, I just let arguments over things I've never said go on without me.
Anyway, to address your original point-
You are not an "old fogy." You want to see standards adhered to. These things do have an impact in the work-place.
I have noticed two major types of ignorance when it comes to work place communications. The first is just plain ignorance, along with poor education and literacy issues. For instance, I see terrible charting and spelling, as well as mispronunciation and incorrect use of medical terminology at work. However, more often UAPs who are the culprits, rather than nurses, in my experience. I've seen staff give pts written instructions which were composed in 'Net slang.
I've also come across nurses who are surprisingly ignorant. For example; I've seen nurses chart the word "prostrate" for prostate. I've also had more than one nurse argue with me saying that a pt who is allergic to NSAIDS can't take APAP.
I've seen misspellings on pt charts that are so bad as to post a danger to pts. Recently, I read a typed notation in a chart listing "penerkellen" as one of a pt's med allergies. The unit sec'y had made the entry. This case, however, is just plain ignorance. I think a lot of things like this happen at work because so many people without any medical education are involved.
Lord knows, many Americans could benefit from improved spelling and grammar skills. I know I could.
However, using 'Net slang and short-cut spelling in academic and professional communications is totally inappropriate.
It shows apathy, disrepect, and social ignorance.