Just typed a practice SOAP note at 6:20 a.m. and my laptop proudly converted it to a “SOUP note” with chief complaint: tomato. If your NP study brain is doing slapstick too, take the giggle and keep moving — minute by minute, you’ve got this.
I type it as “S: O: A: P:” during those 6:20 a.m. sprints so autocorrect leaves it alone, then I delete the colons before pasting into the chart. Not as slick as text-replace, but it dodges the “SOUP” surprise and keeps “chief complaint: tomato” in the cafeteria where it belongs, @OP.
Been there — mine once turned “plan: fluids” into “plan: flutes” and the resident asked if we were starting a band… I fixed it by adding SOAP to the custom dictionary in my laptop’s language settings so it stops being “corrected” everywhere. If that feels heavy-handed, a quick Ctrl+Z right after the switch usually snaps it back.
I started typing ‘SOAP’ in all caps and added it under Autocorrect Exceptions; no more ‘SOUP’ notes with a chief complaint: tomato. Tiny caveat: some EHRs downcase on paste, so I paste ‘SOAP.’ and then delete the period.
On my laptop I type S0AP — zero instead of O — so autocorrect can’t turn it into “SOUP,” then I do a quick Find/Replace to fix it before pasting. Tiny caveat: if your EHR builds section headers automatically, double-check you swapped it there too.