[Sabio]

Writing the Patient Note is an integral part of the CS Exam. When you finish your clinical encounter you are given a 10 minutes during which you have jot down your findings in history and physical examination as well as a list of differential diagnoses and preliminary diagnostic investigations and procedures.

Currently, and up to mid 2011, examinees are allowed two options. They can either write or type the patient note. See this thread for more info about this.

Starting mid 2011, there will be no more the option of writing the patient note. Examinees are going to be asked to type the patient note on the computer keyboard.

This could be in par with the government's recommendations of transforming the medical records into digital records completely.

January 2011 Update:The exact date for this new change has been set to July 17, 2011
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[tabishucms06]

Isnt it going to be difficult now, the typing system??
What will really be the setbacks? I would love if u could tell me.

 

[Sabio]

Implications are good

Isnt it going to be difficult now, the typing system??
What will really be the setbacks? I would love if u could tell me.

I don't think it has any implications other than the need to type fast. On the contrary it may have some advantages.

Previously, when students (specially IMGs) were hand writing the patient notes, they could have been missing "easy" scores due to bad hand writing or due to unorganized patient notes. With the typing system you are less likely to have these two mistakes.

Moreover, it could have been the case (although very rarely) that the scorer could not actually read your hand writing and thereby was underscoring you. Now, with the typing system, there is no such scenario.

In addition, there's a theory that says "American students were getting higher marks than IMGs in PNs because most of them type their notes while IMGs mostly write" therefore now that you are forced to type you will be at equal opportunity with the American grads.

If your typing speed is slow, I suggest you start practicing right now. Within two or three months you will be in a speed that is enough for the test. Also, I suggest you learn the correct way "which is by laying your fingers on the central raw with indexes and middles lightly touching the J and K on the right and the F and D on the left". There are numerous typing softwares on the Internet that teach you the proper way of typing and many of them are free.

If you are looking for a medical career in USA then you are very likely to depend heavily on typing in your future career. The next generation of medical offices will be entirely digital. This is probably going to be true in the next 3 to 5 years, so am not talking decades to come. So at the end of the day you have to be a good keyboarder sooner than you think.

 

[tabishucms06]

Thanx there Sabio friend. This information is valuable to me..