The English language has some quirks of its own. One of them is to include letters in the spellings of certain words, but omit them during the pronunciation of the words. These letters are said to be silent. It was done in the 15th century by scholars of English to remind people (as a nationalistic gesture) that most of the words in the language originated in Latin and Greek. For example the word 'doubt' was spelled as 'dout' then, taken from French 'doute', but had actually been derived from Latin 'dubitare'. So they put a 'b' in the spelling, but kept it silent. There are many such words. The purpose of this article is not to write on English grammar and hence I refrain from giving more examples.
Our Resident doctors show a reverse trend these days. Then tend to leave out letters from spellings of English words when they write clinical notes. Perhaps it is the influence of the modern texting when they send SMS on cell phones.
“pt. and husbnd r staying 2gether” wrote my House officer once on a patient's case paper to record that they were cohabiting. She passed out and is now probably a consultant somewhere. What happens when they practice the art they have learned could be a new trend in clinical practice and record keeping. I dread the possibility of some patient filing a case in a court and such case papers are submitted there as evidence.
“.... there is occlusion of the inular artery” read a report of CT scan of head of a patient who had a cerebrovascular accident in the past. My Registrar presented it to us on ward round.
“I think there is nothing called an inular artery” I said. “It must be 'insular.'
“It is in the patient's printed report” the Registrar said, pointing to the conclusion of the detailed report.
“Let me see the report” I said and read the description. The word in that part was 'insular' and not 'inular'. “Look at the description” I said, “which shows the correct word. It was probably a typo, unless you think it was the correct spelling and the 's' was silent in the spelling of the word.” He looked at me blankly. “Like the spellings I find in case notes of Resident doctors. Letters are missing, and verbs are often missing. Don't you remember lines like 'vaginal incision made, uterine vessels clamped, and uterus removed?”
If guys could blush, he would have. Being a guy, he offered me a smile instead.
