Fearless_Hyena

I actually asked my doctor this a long time ago. He said yeah, that is part of it, but that's not the only reason since it's very easy for anyone to fake a prescription if they really want to. His opinion is that there's several other reasons why they're unintelligible to the layman:

- When he issues a prescription, he tells the patient all the important details re: the medication, but doesn't want to waste loads of time discussing ALL the particulars -- he doesn't want people haggling over the dosage, frequency, refills etc. while they're there in the office. Just take the scrip to the pharmacist and they'll give you what's prescribed, and it will fix you if taken as directed. If further or different medication is required, come back and see the doctor. He writes the scrip based on knowledge and good faith and doesn't want to get into a long drawn out discussion on the theory behind it as patients are leaving the office.

- They're simply written that way, and have been for years and years. It's not tradition for tradition's sake, but for the sake of uniformity there's a specific protocol that's followed. The latin terms are used and recognized by doctors all around so there's less chance for mistakes; if every doctor starts writing prescriptions their own way, it would turn into chaos.

- This tradition also happens to include shitty handwriting Regardless of how shitty and unintelligible it looks, all the crucial info is there and it's readable and understandable by the pharmacist. The shitty handwriting is also almost like a signature too, i.e. personalized and unique to the doctor.

- Nevertheless it's still kinda FUN to write out out scrips which look like nonsense, but are completely understandable by the pharmacist, kind of an "in"-crowd thing...it's kind of funny to watch patients trying to analyze the scrip as they're walking out, most of them are all confused by the chicken scratch.