Not at all hard to swallow

"... Mr Gladpatient is also on cocaine 6 tabs b.i.d."


("Why, yes, our census is very high just now. Why do you ask?"







(Dictated was "coconut oil.")

She delivered a healthy china teacup

"He was born via spontaneous fragile delivery." 










("...vaginal delivery," of course. People don't actually give birth to dishware. What's the matter with you?)

We found the lost continent of Atlantis, though

"CT scan of the head is negative ... There  is no evidence of Malaysia." 




(Dictated: "... no encephalomalacia.")

Desperate doctors

"The patient was discussed with Dr Hospitalist, who is in agreement to suicide."






("... agreement with the plan" was dictated. No clue where Speech Wreck got "suicide"... maybe it's emo).

Best. Speech WRx. Evar.

... at least, until the next best one: 


"Sphincteroid." 





(Dictated:  Synthroid. Thanks to T.J. for this lovely Wreck!). 

Night shift in the Department of Redundancy Department

"She had a frontal headache in the front." 

Prescription and capsule criticism all in one!

"Spurious inhalation 1 q.a.m." 








("Spiriva inhaler" was dictated.)

Which one of you surgeons rolled this poor guy up?

"The patient will unroll in cardiac rehab." 

Cat control in the OR: A slippery problem

(In an op note) "... 25% increased difficulty secondary to large cat." 




You have to wonder: Does the size of the cat really matter? I mean, it's a  frigging cat. How you gonna code that?  

Sometimes he even puts wine in it

"He drinks a wineglass every night."





(Mmmm, crunchy.)

Yep, boys, she's got it all

"...Her mother is age 54 and has her entire apparatus."

(I don't want to say anything further to spoil the beauty of this wreck. It just cries out for a semi-naughty picture of Mae West, though, doesn't it? Even though I doubt ole Mae was ever a mother. As such.)

And if they found him, then what?

The patient had x-rays of his foot to evaluate for Osceola.

(dictated was "... for osteo," obviously. 

I can't make this stuff up, folks. 

But Speech Wreck can!)

I just met a graft named Maria

"... autologous bone graft harvested from the hip using Maria."


..."and suddenly this pain
will never be the same
to meeee...." 
Sorry. I've said it before: Sometimes I can't help myself. 

(Dictated was, "...using the RIA..."  easier than using a character from a half-century old musical. Probably.)

Why? What did they do?

"She had exoneration of her frontal sinuses."

(Yes, I know that technically, it should be, "what were they accused of?" Shoo, grammar Nazis! Shoo!)

That's a strange expression, Bruce

"She also had a tuberous to loosen her Cleese."

("... a tubeless enteroclysis"). 

This cost-cutting is out of control

"Labs drawn at a truck mechanic hospital..."

He's not any good, but at least he's cheap

"The patient sees Bill Localguy, failure practitioner, for primary care."

(Dictated: "... family nurse practitioner...")

If you are a medical provider and you do this, we hate you

...Dropping the humor mask for a moment, folks. Please take a look at the following post over on the excellent Dr Grumpy's blog: http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/2011/12/beware-of-dragon.html


It seems providers using front-end speech recognition--sending the dictated drafts straight to the chart without proofreading or editing--have finally been forced to unhappily recognize what we at Horse HQ have been illustrating for a while now: Despite the urgings of VR vendors waving fistfuls of dollars in sweet cost savings, VR's vaunted low error percentage is nowhere near what's advertised; the much-touted learning algorithms are not all that, either.  (At my hospital, e.g., VR software remains unable to recognize the word "gout," after over two years and literally thousands of corrections. But I digress). 


So some medical providers now must recognize that there are errors in the speech-recognized reports on their charts. Oh, dear. What do they do? Do they decide to take  time out to proofread each report, or have an experienced professional do it for them, or have someone, anyone do it for them? 

No. That might increase costs. Can't do that. Instead, they make the obvious choice: A magical solution. They accept the errors; nay, they embrace them, for  powerful magic exists that can make mistakes disappear: A disclaimer!  Who cares if bizarre VR errors make a well-educated medical professional appear sloppy and careless at best, and at worst, compromise patient care? There's a disclaimer!  Right there on every report! Powerful juju against disrespect, bafflement, expanding confusion, and lawyers! All they need to do is be up-front about it: Tell the world their reports are generated by speech recognition, and then... any errors or omissions are not their fault.  


It will be interesting to see how this disclaimer thing plays out...sure, technologic change is a juggernaut that can't be stopped, but even so, reason must step in, here. Magic, not so much. 

Self-control during the holidays... often a problem

"Ms. Patient sustained a mechanical fall last night. She reports she was getting up from a binge at a restaurant."

("... getting up from a bench...")

Where there's smoke there's... oh, wait

"Discharge diagnosis: Tobacco habitation."

You know how there's "green" housing? Well, I think we can safely say this is the opposite of that. (It was "tobacco habituation," BTW).