I once bought a great pen. It had a light woodgrain body with my name engraved across it. With its smooth rollerball, the pen was perfect because I didn’t have to apply much pressure to write—a boon, given the limited finger function that I have as a result of a spinal-cord injury.

So when I started my shift in the emergency department a few weeks ago and noticed that the pen wasn’t with me, I was momentarily annoyed. But then I realized that I rarely use a pen these days. Satisfaction washed over me; the very thing that I spent weeks learning to write with had now become largely redundant, thanks to electronic medical records.