When I use a word . . . Medical emoticons

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Source: BMJ

Original: http://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s308.short?rss=1...

Published: 2026-02-13T22:46:03-08:00

Emoticons are increasingly being used in medical records, especially in the US. A report from the University of Michigan Medical School identified the 50 most frequently used emoticons in 4,162 electronic health record files from 372 different emoticons. A quarter of them were used repeatedly in the same sets of notes, for a total of 7,130 instances. Each emoticon was used between 18 and 1,772 times, with a median of 36 and an interquartile range of 24-85. The most commonly used was "smiling face with smiling eyes". A dozen of the 50 most used were variations of this smiley, totaling 2,284 occurrences.