Why Punctuation and Commas are Important in Healthcare Settings

The Importance of Grammar and Punctuation Marks in the Medical Field

A woman scanning her menu at a nice restaurant sees a grizzly bear finish his meal, get up, pull out a gun, shoot his waiter and then exit. Startled and perplexed, she asked another waiter what happened and was told that the bear had read about his eating habits in a wildlife field guide which stated, “Bears: Eats, shoots, and leaves.” While this story is clearly intended for humor, the importance of misplaced commas is nothing to laugh about in the medical field. Indeed, precision is the foundation of modern medicine and this extends to virtually anything written by health care providers. In fact, many medication errors are caused by incorrect punctuation or abbreviations that can refer to two or more drugs or procedures (Nicholls & Metules, 2001). Even in an era when electronic health care records are becoming ubiquitous and mistakes attributable to poor handwriting or loopy cursive notes are becoming a thing of the past, there is still no substitute for precision in writing because the stakes are high and people’s wellbeing and even lives are at risk when other health care practitioners are unable to determine with exactness what is meant in a written order.