Last rites for writing
The problem of poor writing in English has trickled upwards, corrupting the quality and meaning of documentation, not only in pathology reporting, but in Medicine as a whole. It has trickled upwards from the elementary schools, through high school, the colleges and universities, and now pervades the work of graduates, home-grown and foreign. U.S.-trained pathologists are not immune from the disorder, and are either unable to recognize the need for improvement or are too busy to worry about grammar and proof-reading. The inability to express subtleties, to provide well conceived comments, and even to spell, is deplorable. We will be forever dependent on that universal crutch, the spell check.