I am someone who would prefer to type on a computer than handwrite notes. I find I am able to type much faster than I can write and my notes become much more legible then the chicken scratch that is produced in class. I remember being taught to learn cursive in elementary school, they insisted I would need it in high school and beyond, but to date the only useful cursive I need is for my signature or the annoying section of the SATs. There is currently an interesting generation divide between those of us who have grown up with technology and those who have not. We shall describe it as the typers and the cursive writers. The typers are our generation and below who have become accustomed to touching screens rather than curling our letters, but for older generations the switch hasn’t been so easy.
Recently medical records have been switched to online, as most everything has, but this has caused an interesting problem for doctors. Many doctors, specifically surgeons are finding that they are actually becoming slower, that typing takes longer than writing and are struggling to adjust to the new system. For many this is alarming, my doctor can cut me open but doesn’t have the motor skills to type quickly on keyboards, something many of us can do. When T. Shen explains his struggle, “I can’t type. My 1970s and ‘80s childhood was sandwiched between the typewriter and personal computer eras, and I never had any formal instruction in how to properly navigate a keyboard.”
Although easy to avoid at first the technological age is something that must be adjusted to for future success. Shen says he has noticed visible concern on his patients fact as he slowly fumbles with the keys. If their surgeon can’t operate the laptop how can they have the hands to operate on the body. (Shen) He says it allows him a chance to seem normal to his patients, something that doesn’t happen very often has he saves lives on the operating table.
Even though it can be slightly humiliating I found the depth of this technological gap to be fascinating. Typing is something I have always taken for granted and the fact that people still struggle with it, especially highly intelligent individuals like surgeons is shocking. I would agree that it may cause me concern to see my doctor struggling to type my evaluation but hearing it from Shen’s point of view made it comical and entertaining. Modern medicine is always advancing, but its surgeons aren’t always.
Work Cited
Shen, Wen T. “Your Surgeon Seems Qualified, but Can He Type?” Well Your Surgeon Seems Qualified but Can He Type Comments. The New York Times, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.