Why I document like a pharmacist

Clinical documentation is held to a standard engineering docs rarely reach, and the standard is worth stealing. The rule that governs it: the note exists for the next person — often a stranger, often in a hurry, often making a decision with what you wrote.

The disciplines I imported

Observation and interpretation, separated. A clinical note distinguishes "blood pressure 150/95" (observed) from "likely hypertensive" (interpretation). My engineering notes now do the same: "deploys failed twice on Tuesday" is observation; "the new CDN is flaky" is interpretation, and it lives clearly marked as such. Mixing them is how wrong theories fossilise into facts.

Timestamps on everything. Chart entries carry author and time, because decisions are made against timelines, not against vibes. My decision logs have dates, and arguments about "when did this start" end in seconds.

Write for the reader who wasn't there. The chart assumes the next clinician has zero of your context. My docs now assume the same: no "as discussed," no unexplained acronyms, no依赖 on the meeting nobody recorded.

The correction is an addition. Charts never erase; they append with a reason. My docs follow: corrections are dated addenda, so the trail of thinking survives.

The payoff

Documentation written this way gets read — because it's reliable, and reliability is the only quality a reader in a hurry cares about. The chart never lies. That's the whole brand. It's a good brand for a repo to have.