I was never a star writer in high school or college. But I was taught and tested in all types of writing continuously throughout my education.

For each quarter in all four years of high school, everyone in my school was required to produce a research paper. If memory serves, and maybe it doesn’t, that paper had to be at least 30 pages long. We were required to take the whole quarter to do it.

They brought whole classes through the process in stages. First we did research, and that involved a lot of index cards. I remember cool girls walking around carrying their fat stacks of cards. Secondly, we did our first drafts, and passed them around to other for critique. Second and final draft editing with upperclassmen or the teachers was often brutal. In the end, we all could produce a serviceable, if not stellar product.

Everyone in my high school also had to take at least four years in a foreign language. That meant your last two years, or three if you took five years, included paper writing in your second language. There is nothing better for learning English grammar than to learn the grammar of other languages. By learning Latin and French, I honed my English grammar skills.

As an undergraduate in STEM, I was still required to write all the time. Since we had graduation requirements in English, foreign language, and Humanities, as well as our STEM classes, I wrote papers in those disciplines, and sometimes in French. I helped translate ancient prayers from Hebrew to English. I wrote papers about the birth control pill for the biochemist who invented it. I wrote about Middle Eastern Politics for a Member of the Israeli Knesset. My classmates and fellow paper editors included American hippies and British educated Saudi royalty. I wrote about the history of Feminism for Condoleeza Rice. I wrote about the teaching of physics to children for a physicist who designed the preview theater at Skywalker Ranch. Thus, many people taught me to write, and none of them were writers.

In the first two years of medical school, we did not write per se. We took copious and beautiful class notes, and made index cards into high art. In the third and fourth years, we were taught to write medical notes and to dictate. At the time, dictating notes fluently and completely seemed to be the purview of geniuses. I secretly doubted that I would ever become competent at it.

As an Ob/Gyn intern, we all hit the ground running in the worst possible way. Being on 36/12 was insane. Every patient procedure, every history and physical, every consult and every op note was dictated. Before I realized it, dictating was like breathing- breathing very quickly. I have no idea when it went from hard to the easiest thing ever. I have been dictating ever since.

Now I use a combination or writing, dictating, software editing and human editing. Once again, I cannot promise you eloquent and flawless writing. I can however, promise you interesting stories and helpful information gleaned over the decades.