or: when your writing is apparently too competent to be human

Disclaimer

This blog reflects my own views and experiences. It is written in a personal capacity, does not represent my employer, and contains no confidential or identifiable patient or staff information. Any resemblance to real conversations is, as ever, entirely coincidental.

“I don’t believe Mike is capable of writing this by himself – did you use ChatGPT for your email reply?”

That sentence landed with a surprising thud.

Not because it was particularly offensive (it wasn’t shouted, muttered, or accompanied by eye-rolling), but because it came from a very well-respected colleague from a different specialty. One of those people whose opinion usually carries weight precisely because they tend not to say careless things.

And yet, there it was.

I’ll be honest: I was taken aback. Not incandescent with rage, not drafting a counter-memo in my head, just momentarily wrong-footed.

The professional equivalent of being told, “You didn’t really cook this, did you?” while standing next to an empty saucepan and a smug-looking chopping board.

At the time, I let it slide. Not everything needs an immediate response, and healthcare is already loud enough without adding reactive indignation to the noise. But it did sit there. Quietly. Like an unresolved tab left open in your browser.

So yesterday when I was back at work, in a calm and entirely un-theatrical way, I made a brief, well-timed comment to one of her colleagues. Not to escalate, not to score points, but simply to explain that I was uncomfortable with the implication behind the remark. Professional. Polite. No raised eyebrows were harmed in the process.

Now, to be fair, I can see how this assumption might arise.

I am, by default, semi-serious at work. I use humour. I am occasionally deadpan. I will quite happily defuse tension with a well-placed aside rather than a PowerPoint slide. For some, this seems to translate into an assumption that when I do write formally, clearly, and with an evidence-based argument, there must be technological assistance involved.

Apparently, being light-hearted and literate are mutually exclusive traits.

What perhaps gets overlooked is the slightly inconvenient fact that before nursing, I studied social work, psychology, and public health. Entire disciplines devoted to argumentation, critical appraisal, structured writing, and—crucially—explaining complex ideas clearly. Knowing how to build a coherent argument is not an accidental by-product of nursing; it’s something I’ve been trained to do, repeatedly, and assessed on at length.

For the sake of transparency, yes—I do use ChatGPT.

Not to invent arguments I don’t understand, nor to outsource thinking, but primarily as a sense-check. I use it to review emails I have already written, or articles for my website, to ensure tone, clarity, and — perhaps most importantly — alignment with the NMC social media guidelines. Anyone who has read those will know they are a genuine minefield. One misplaced sentence, one poorly framed aside, and suddenly you are explaining yourself in places you never intended to visit.

If a tool helps reduce that risk—helps ensure professionalism, boundaries, and regulatory compliance—then using it is not laziness. It is risk management.

The issue, then, is not whether digital tools exist or are used. They are, and they will be. The issue is the reflexive disbelief that a colleague could produce a clear, well-argued piece of writing without external help—and that this disbelief is voiced casually, without reflection on what it implies about professional respect.

So yes, it bothered me. Not enough to derail my day, but enough to register. And with a meeting coming up about nasogastric tube issues (because of course there is), it will be interesting to see whether anything comes back from it.

If it does, fine. If it doesn’t, also fine.

But perhaps the quiet takeaway is this:

being approachable does not mean being incapable, and writing well should not automatically trigger suspicion. Sometimes, a colleague really did just write the email themselves.