Consider the consequences of a badly written note to a patient. what kind of message does this send to the patient? why is word choice so critical to pay attention to when communicating with patients in writing? how can word choice impact how a message is received? what responsibility do you have as a medical assistant in ensuring the communication is clear and written properly? what are the steps that you should take to ensure that written communication is clear?

A badly written note to a patient sends a message to the patient that you do not care about their health and well being and you are not taking their problems seriously. It gives a message that you are unprofessional, have no attention to detail and lack the necessary skills to do your job properly.

Word choice is critical when communicating to a patient as you need to be clear and concise and also empathic, you are in a caring professional and need to demonstrate that you are knowledgeable, understanding and precise. Patient's need to be able to trust in your judgement and be clear in what they need to do for their own health or what your recommendations are.

As a medical assistant you need to check that the note is understandable and if you find errors you need to tell the doctor to rewrite it. You must review the notes before they get sent to the patients. In each note all information needs to be precise, legible, correct, empathic, simple (some medical jargon is not understandable to non medical professionals).

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