Beastly handwriting

It has long been a widely accepted fact—especially among patients, nurses, and pharmacists—that doctors have far worse handwriting than most other so called learned professionals. Recent studies have largely confirmed this popular belief, one such study (1979) finding that 16% of doctors wrote quite illegibly and that another 17% were barely legible.

Why doctors should write so badly is not quite clear, and it is improbable that they are still trying to keep …