I had beautiful handwriting. Then I became a doctor.
Seriously though, throughout my medical career I had to write notes in paper charts. Electronic medical records came in, making prescribing much clearer, but they had not yet reached the point of accepting patient notes. When I sat down to describe the lfe or death discussion which I just had with a patient's family, or the details of their history and physical, I always noted the date and time and tried to make things very clear and legible, because the patient chart is an important communication tool (and can come back to haunt you in reviews and lawsuits later). I was comfortable doing this in cursive and my writing was always legible unless I had been up all night. When transferring a patient to another hospital or service, I always composed the letter in Word and printed copies for signature.
I was quite involved in peer review activities and so I got to read (or try to read) notes from nurses, physicians and allied health care professionals all the time. Many nurses have elegant writing, but sometimes elegant cursive can be difficult to read when the lines are too close together.
I was also in a position where I led many teams who worked hard to achieve objectives. Since I was not in a position to provide monetary rewards or incentives, my practice was to write everyone an individual handwritten letter of thanks at the end of a project, thanking them for their unique contribution. This was highly meaningful for most people, and they often kept those letters. I saw the best ones surfacing in portfolios later.
I write much less now, but I can still do it. IMHO there is still no better way to compose a shopping list than with a pencil and paper. However, I recently completed an online creative writing course, in which earners were advised to keep a writing notebook to jot down potentially interesting observations. That is NOT happening!
Nice flowing style.
