andamu

When I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, I had to start testing my blood glucose levels twice a day. My glucose meter stores these results (the most recent 100 entries, I think) and then I have to transcribe them. I am supposed to bring my results along to my doctor, my diabetician and my endocrinologist, so they can track my progress (or lack thereof).

So I entered the values in a spreadsheet, and created some charts.

• I plotted all the values on a bar chart, I split out the values by morning and evening, fasting and non-fasting, and drew line charts plotted against the date, with the target zone indicated.
• I created trendlines to spot well, trends.
• I zoomed in on the last month, and I showed the greater picture with charts running over several months.
• I created pie charts to represent the ranges of readings.

And how did they respond? Every single one of them looked at the charts (some incomprehendingly) for a few moments and said: "Oh. No, but where is the list of numbers?"
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In hospitals there are "pain scales" posted on the walls - a bar gradually changing from green at level 0 through yellow, amber to red at level 10.

I have tried multiple times in the ER to answer a doctor's request to describe the pain with a verbal representation of an xy chart with the pain scale on the y axis, and time on the x. Somehow they just don't seem to understand "a mostly constant 5 with intermittent spikes to 6, 7 and occasionally 8, until the constant level is elevated to 7 and the spikes reach 9......"
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I guess not all pictures are worth the same to everyone.