The handwriting’s on the wall

Our writing is a feature as distinctive as our personality, our voice and our appearance

Consider for a moment: how much is your handwriting worth to you? If your ability disappeared in the morning, would the machinery of your life grind and groan? Or would it just be a mild distraction? While the answer to this will vary by age, I think it’s now true for most that being able to operate a smartphone is distinctly more important than being able to write. 

Drew Gilpin Faust, the former President of Harvard and a historian, thought about this a few years ago. She described teaching an undergraduate seminar in American Civil War history to some (presumably intelligent) Gen Z students.  A student found the books interesting but photos of manuscripts were meaningless to him because he couldn’t read joined writing (in American English, the less awkward ‘cursive’).  In fact, most of her students could not, and had mentally boxed-off joined writing as mysterious squiggles belonging in an attic. In a world where almost all communication was in type, being able to join your letters was about as important a skill as operating a telegraph machine.

I suspect that America, for better and for worse, is a few years ahead of Ireland in this trend, but handwriting is in its autumn years everywhere. For many, block letters to make a short note and an elegant swoosh for a signature are all they require. This is inevitable and more than a little sad.

Our writing is a feature as distinctive as our personality, our voice and our appearance: mine may not be pretty but it is entirely me. For those of us who are not gifted as painters, carvers or the like, it may be about as creative as we get with our hands. It’s part of the fabric of our childhood and I can recognise the writing of my family, grandparents and schoolfriends as easy as their faces.

For those of us who are only too happy to dismiss astrology and star signs as superstitious nonsense, judging people based on their writing is a pleasant alternative hobby that is also a little scientifically fragile.

This area has obvious relevance in the world of medicine. In America, writing is almost non-existent in hospitals and I could not recognise the script of anyone I know. In Ireland, we still have ample opportunities to practise our penmanship at work for all the wrong reasons. The problems with our approach are clear: it’s laborious when other countries have electronic shortcuts aplenty; locating a note from more than a few weeks ago would drive you to tears; and our bad writing is a comedy staple on par with ‘a man walks into a bar’.

But there is a little more nuance to it than that. Notes in electronic paper records drip with unhelpful templates, core text that has been copy-pasted for the last five years and the report of every scan the patient has ever had; written notes are necessarily short.

I suspect that America, for better and for worse, is a few years ahead of Ireland in this trend, but handwriting is in its autumn years everywhere

And as with everyone else, doctors’ writing give us a little window into the people they are. My old GP, who would happily chat to me for 20 minutes about life and memories, wrote only with a fountain pen in purple ink. I worked for one consultant who mentally always seemed to be thinking five steps ahead of everyone else. His writing was best interpreted by placing the sheet on a desk, squatting so the sheet was at eye level, and reading from the bottom of the page.

Not all doctors have ugly writing, either. I remember a testy disagreement with one CNM about the best handwriting in one of my training hospitals. He favoured a gastroenterologist, but we all knew the worthy winner was a cardiology registrar whose notes could have featured in the Book of Kells.

Regardless, they are on the way out. It is hard to imagine a written note looking as archaic as a glass syringe or doctor smoking on the wards, but when EPRs arrive, future generations of doctors will just carry on like charts never existed.

Faust, in her article, worries that future generations will ‘miss the excitement and inspiration’ that comes from interacting ‘with the physical embodiment of thoughts and ideas voiced by a person long since silenced by death.’ Reading joined writing to interpret the past will become a privilege restricted to a small few, the stuff of artisans in a dusty workshop.

But I think the blow is not just for historians and the link we lose is not just with the past. Writing can tell us something about the people around us today too, and every letter, medical note or post-it, bears just a little bit of their character.