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Now, who is going to put an "answer key" version in here?? Any takers? Shan

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This is eye-catching and priceless, Shan. You should get extra credit for this one!! I did not see you use my favorite (alot) in your sample though. May I have permission to paste this to our general discussion forums too, please -- or would you be willing to put it there?! I think it would be well received!!!

Susan

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add CHF in parenthesis after the term

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I have a habit of spelling out all abbreviations, or putting the spelled out words in parenthesis

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In addition to the great advice already given, I'll add my 2 cents. Generally, your company, account, or client will determine this for you, as far as which abbreviations are to be expanded, in which sections of the report, etc. Unless your employer specifically wants you to expand ALL abbreviations, I wouldn't do this. As lib said, many dictators/accounts want their dictated abbreviations kept due to financial concerns. Also, sometimes it is impossible to tell what the correct expansion is in the given context if they don't dictate it. If you expand some abbreviations (in the body) simply by personal choice, you must expand ALL abbreviations. If you can't tell what the correct expansion is, you are guessing. If you don't realize there is more than 1 possible correct expansion to the same abbreviation, and you choose the one you happen to know, that is just as bad as guessing. So, if you then have expanded out every other abbreviation and you come to one you don't know or can't figure out with 100% certainty, you would then need to go back up and delete all your expansions and change them back to the abbreviations, for the sake of consistency, or leave a BLANK in the one abbreviation you can't figure out the correct expansion for, which you obviously cannot and should not do. In the absence of clear-cut directions on when and when not to expand, to expand out some and not all is unprofessional. These are just some examples of other scenarios where you can actually compromise patient care, your professionalism, and your job by expanding accepted abbreviations unnecessarily.

Another reason not to do this (unless specifically instructed) is that a lot of companies will consider this "cheating" your line count by popping in an entire expanded abbreviation when the abbreviation was dictated, desired, and in most cases perfectly acceptable and oftentimes more appropriate in terms of clarity and readability than an expanded abbreviation. I've heard some physicians complaining when certain abbreviations were expanded in the impression section (even on the accounts that required us to expand in the impression/assessment/diagnosis sections). More often than not, the docs do not want abbreviations expanded. If your employer tells you specifically to do it, then you're fine (assuming you know or can determine what the correct expansion is). To do it otherwise, you are taking a chance. Just IMHO.

To sum it up, your employer should tell you what they want/require. If they don't specifically tell you to expand ALL abbreviations, particularly the ones in the main body of the report, I don't personally think it's a good idea to do this.

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These are issues that make my students' eyes roll back in their heads as we get into them

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