A Fountain Pen User's Lament

[jmccarty3]

Much as a patient with a terminal illness must come to an acceptance of his fate, I am confronted with the reality that next week I will no longer be able to use my beloved fountain pens in my medical practice.

 

The government and corporate entities that are destroying medical care in the US have dictated that electronic medical records must be used. EMRs are not a good thing for patients or doctors, regardless of what you may have heard, but that is an argument for another day. It is difficult to decide what is most depressing: having to learn extremely user-unfriendly software that detracts from the care of my patients, or the loss of one of the major pleasures of my day, the regular use of my fountain pens.

 

I will not be able to spend much time much time on FPN for the foreseeable future, because everything we do in our office must be adapted to the monster. I hope to return if I survive.

[irabelo]

That's sad to hear (though I'm in no position to give opinion on the EMR subject). But maybe you could work around it

Keep doing your records on good old ink & paper, and transcript it all to the computer at the end of the day. Or even better: hire someone to do it

 

- Igor

[Chris]

Tis a sad day.

 

Twas a sad day in the UK when the Registrar for Births, Deaths and Marriages was required to do likewise. No more ledgers to be searched by future researchers, just boring old computer records that will become corrupted or, like floppy discs, unreadable as new technology is forced upon an unwilling population. Sad too for the manufacturer of Registrars Ink!

(Yes, I know - Grumpy old man - fully paid up )

[marcelo]

Much as a patient with a terminal illness must come to an acceptance of his fate, I am confronted with the reality that next week I will no longer be able to use my beloved fountain pens in my medical practice.

 

The government and corporate entities that are destroying medical care in the US have dictated that electronic medical records must be used. EMRs are not a good thing for patients or doctors, regardless of what you may have heard, but that is an argument for another day. It is difficult to decide what is most depressing: having to learn extremely user-unfriendly software that detracts from the care of my patients, or the loss of one of the major pleasures of my day, the regular use of my fountain pens.

 

I will not be able to spend much time much time on FPN for the foreseeable future, because everything we do in our office must be adapted to the monster. I hope to return if I survive.

 

I hope the monster does not crush your pens!

[SteveE]

I share your pain. In my case, I can still use my pens for note-taking and draft-writing. Almost all of our correspondence is via email, and any that is not email is word-processed and only requires a signature. At least nobody is trying to tell me how to prepare drafts and my own subject notes.

 

My pain is a future pain. At some point I will likely retire from the daily grind. After that, then what? Unless I take up fiction writing, I will have far less use for my pens, and I'm not sure what to do about that.

 

Maybe I just won't retire. . .

[LeonW]

I feel your pain, suggest you start on fictional writing, crime committed in the medical realm using the new EMR as culprit.

[jmccarty3]

I feel your pain, suggest you start on fictional writing, crime committed in the medical realm using the new EMR as culprit.

 

Now that is a good idea. When the dust settles, I will have to consider it. I already thought of a good plot line.