There is a wide spread of typing skills across the hospital based healthcare workforce
People get better if they do a typing course
Male doctors hate hospital administration more than anyone else
So - it is pretty hard to intervene on those grumpy male doctors. But there is one obvious and easy intervention that could make things better on this front:
Who has actually done a typing course?
I’ve done one in the last decade
Did one in the deep dark past
Have never done one
0voters
Got any tips as to how to get better at typing? And how to roll this out in your organisation?
If you play the piano you know how to use all your fingers on a keyboard. Position your fingers so that the index finger of your left hand rests of the F key (that’s why there’s a little nodule on the key) and the index finger of your right hand rests on the J key (this is similar to orientating yourself to the piano with middle C). Now start typing by reaching from your resting position.
This question, along with the piano references above, reminds me of an old joke:
Q: “Excuse me sir, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
A: “Practice, practice, practice!” (though it have been a violin in the original).
I credit my typing speed to being at uni in some of the earlier days of instant messaging. If you didn’t type quickly, the conversation would have moved on by the time you’d finished what you were wanting to say, so if you were slow you’d never get a word in!
There are plenty of free online tools to help train your brain and learning is a lot easier than you might think. Best tip I read was don’t make mistakes, go slower, otherwise you will never learn.
Great point @GPaterson. Same with piano - practice and start slowly (note to self: that piece I’m learning with the tricky timing on the piano - must slow down to gain mastery)
As the first person I met at work this year was a male doctor who does not type. He promptly told me that I was worthless and my work was irrelevant, this study seems on the numbers.
On a slightly more positive note, I have often wondered why we do not invest in systems for transcription of dictation or stylus input that gets converted to typed text and bypass this whole debate.
There needs to be a reason to invest time into what seems to be such a pointless skill if others do the typing for them anyway. The ones who don’t type are probably older men, and those who despite all efforts and desire/motivation just can’t get it right. Typing = admin work = not interesting (i.e., clinical) = someone else’s job.
Let’s start with the willing and let the unwilling stew in the juices of the consequences of not building skill in typing until they no longer can get away with delegating the task.
Or did I wake up with my cynical face this morning?
Funny and true. If you think about the hierarchy pre electronics the notes were written by the junior doc, letters were dictated and typed by the secretary. The redistribution of work back to the lead is not always welcome.
Yup. I was practising Pachelbel’s canon yesterday and there is a section where you’re playing in thirds, which is quite difficult. I got into a rhythm and just repeated again and again in a kind of rhythm what I needed my hands to do, and before I knew it, I was doing it right.
Two of my GP colleagues (and many others elsewhere) use dictation-to-text applications, they are just not as good (yet) as you would hope. I want some AI or NLP system to translate free text to whatever application/tab it needs to go to. E.g. smear result comes in, is added to screening, new date is set for next one and reminder is programmed to go to patient at that date. Or I type a whole lot of free text and it selects what needs to go into classification, screening etc. On the typing topic: if you make it part of the school curriculum, you’re all set. I did a typing course at age 12 (was voluntary though) and can still close my eyes and type away
When I was at school I had to learn to touch type, I remember being really cross as the boys got to do metal work, it was very sexist. However also the best thing sexism ever did for me One of the boys got to opt out of metalwork and do typing (you couldn’t do it the other way around), I learnt on a good old ink typewriter with a little cloth over my hands. There was a bit of a gap before we actually got to use computers when I was in uni but the typing course has paid off in so many ways. I am stunned that they no longer teach typing in schools and despite my harassing of my children non of them have learned to touch type… mind you they also use a lot of speech to text…
I used a kids game called typing tournament to pick up my speed, I could still use some work though, in fact this thread has spurred me on to do just that and improve my count… I use the backspace button a wee bit
Ah Ruth! You remind me that I also hated the idea of typing at school. I was at an all-girls school so no sexism to spur me on. When I failed my first year at uni I had to get a job to pay back my scholarship. I couldn’t find work because I couldn’t type or do filing (all my school subjects were boy subjects – science, biology, maths). I had one filing job for two weeks and when the time was up they asked me not to come back. My dad found me a job as a lab technician in an assay lab on a neighbouring gold mine. Much more fun than learning to type.
I did do a course that came with Microsoft computers – I think it was called Mavis or something like that (when we still worked in DOS, preWindows 95 days). The time tests got me every time because I’m always in a hurry and make mistakes. Writing my Masters thesis set me right.
My homework this week is to slow down and avoid using the back button, haha!
