Why should your doctor take good notes?

The question of whether patients should have unlimited access to their medical charts and doctor's notes. At first glance, the answer is a robust "YES", after all it is about (me) the patient, therefore it is (my) the patient's 'right' to have complete and unhampered access.

Actually though, it is highly unlikely most non-medically educated patients really wouldn't understand the language in their progress notes. It's not usually a matter of whether or not they can read the notoriously horrible penmanship of the physician, since the notes are dictated verbally by the physician and then transcribed by a trained medical transcriptionist who has put in many long hours learning the medical terms, acronyms, and "doctor-ese" abbreviations.