One of the trainings that nurses must have is being able to write short-handed on the patient’s medical history. Nurses have a different way of documenting because they write in the style of free-writing in patients’ medical history. Shorthanded or freewriting is essential, so patients do not stay overnight at the hospital. Another reason that freewriting is essential is because more healthcare is delivered at home. Terri Lock states “In patients’ medical file, we use more free-hand style writing or sometimes, the SOAP format. The SOAP format stands for: Subjective data, Objective Data, Assessment of patient, and Plan. This is widely accepted in the medical field (Locke).’’ Some nurses write in APA format when it comes to official papers, federal grants or proposals. Rita Conner said, “The most challenging part about writing when it used in her career is to make sure that it flows grammatically in the medical files of patients.” Also, a different writing format can be used depending on what field of nursing. Nurses need to be careful when writing down a patients’ information. An important reason why nurses have been cautious from a nursing …show more content…
If nurses are planning on going to graduate school, then they are required to submit assignments in APA format. Also, they use active voice instead of passive voice. For example, “Sally watered the Chia pot” is an example of active voice. An example of passive voice “The Chia pot was watered by Sally.” As nurses go beyond the Associate Degree of Nursing, they will write more narrative summaries and the writing levels increase. Another fact is that this type of documentation has been effective so health care is being delivered at home, so that patients do not have to stay overnight at the