Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Gender pronouns

Seen in another doctor's note:



Before you write in - the patient hasn't had gender reassignment. Simply a doctor who doesn't proofread.

17 comments:

  1. The Evil ReceptionistMay 13, 2014 at 7:21 AM

    I'd like to see that doc try to blame Dragon for *this* one!

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  2. I think this doctor is Chinese, mostly because the second person pronoun in Mandarin does not have gender and Chinese people speaking English regularly forget whether they're supposed to be using He or She.

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  3. I think this doctor is Chinese, mostly because the second person pronoun in Mandarin does not have gender and Chinese people speaking English regularly forget whether they're supposed to be using He or She.

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  4. My parents are from India, and sometime when my dad speaks he says he instead of she, so maybe it's as JH says. Still funny though!

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  5. Perhaps the patient is a transvestite or part way through sex reassignment procedures?

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  6. Perhaps a.generic doc is the person who dictated the note :)

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  7. by any chance the patient is the Eurovision 2014 winner Conchita Wurst?

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  8. I guess he/she really has had a tough year, doesn't know it he should turn his head and cough, bend over and grab the table or put her feet in the stirrups.

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  9. Maybe the doctor mixed up two patients in his/her notes?

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  10. Classic case of he said, she said.

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  11. A bonafide Medical Transcriptionist would have made the necesary corrections based on the patient demographics. Voice recognition and EHR is killing my business. After 20 years, I hate to think I may have to start working at McDonalds ...

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  12. I'll second JH. My wife is Chinese and I would have no problem with believing she had said this. It is much harder to learn new language concepts than it is to learn new words.

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  13. To the commenter named "Me" who said this:

    "A bonafide Medical Transcriptionist would have made the necesary corrections based on the patient demographics. Voice recognition and EHR is killing my business. After 20 years, I hate to think I may have to start working at McDonalds ... "

    I've done that in my bonafide years transcribing medical reports. So sad how VR is ruining not only the MT biz but I can't help but wonder how many lives it has ruined when serious errors are not caught by tired transcribers/editors pushing their way to earn enough money to survive.

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  14. My "Dragon" acts drunk, my notes look a lot like this before I edit them. I miss having a good transcriptionist. I even miss having a bad one some days.

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  15. I have to 3rd the suggestion of a Chinese born doctor. My husband is Chinese as are many of his friends/coworkers and they do this all the time. The characters for he, she, and it are different, but the pronunciation is the same. At least in Mandarin, perhaps not in all dialects.

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  16. I was going to say that my husband (Japanese) used to have a lot of trouble in conversations before I figured out that there doesn't seem to be a similarly comparable 'pronoun' between European languages and Japanese. This is a pervasive issue, because several times, now, I've received e-mails from people without appellations that have genderless first names, and have wondered how to respond, i.e. "Thanks for your prompt response to my inquiry Ms. (Mr.?) C. Tyler Emerson." Lurking in the depths of politeness somewhere is "Thanks ... Fellow Human-being with the last name of Emerson"?

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  17. I'm not a psychiatrist but it sounds like a mannish depressive with delusions of gender (bad pun I know but I saw a good place to use that old punchline)

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So wadda you think?