I word as a medical transcriptionist, that is my job is to listen to audio dictations where doctors report on a patient's care, i.e. detailed logs of an operation performed on them, and transcribe it to text. Lately I've been thinking about the history of this practice. Today the process is completely digital, but just a few decades ago doctors dictated on analog magnetic tape and people in my profession typed the records on paper using typewriters. In the pretty near future this process will probably be mostly automated through speech recognition.
But what is the history of this practice in general? Did hospitals before the prevalence of audio recording equipment keep detailed records of patients' medical history? Because the doctors sure as hell probably didn't have time to write it them selves, and dictating in real time to a secretary seems clumsy, though who am I to say it didn't happen? And what about before typewriters?
In medieval Europe, medical texts usually did not document patient information like we do today. They described diseases and treatments, but did not give patient examples for the most part. Henry VIII's physician kept very detailed records, though, although this was a little later when this was becoming more common. Medical schools and the professionalization of medicine in the late medieval/early modern period helped push these sort of advancements in Europe. Check out "Inside the Body of Henry the VIII." They used his records to decipher Henry's medical issues.