Atul Gawande’s book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” describes in detail how doctors have applied checklists to medicine. Previously in the purview of engineers and pilots, data show that a well-written checklist, brief enough to be usable but comprehensive enough to address multiple sources of error and complications, can dramatically improve outcomes.

While many of us would like to believe we are above needing a checklist (we’re doctors, not chefs!), research over the past decade is impressive. When we insist on using well-designed checklists, our patients benefit. So what is the harm in a few annoying signs on the walls with cute memory aids? The answer is that when we are inundated by these lists, some of which state the obvious, we begin to resent them as signs that we are cogs in the wheel of the health care machine. It’s depersonalizing, a word we associate with burnout.

There’s nothing like a dose-response curve to demonstrate the effectiveness and eventual futility of an intervention. Indeed, there is an inflection point for every cure at which the medicine becomes worse than the illness. A study in the UK in 2008 showed that an increase in road signs (including safety signs) delayed reaction times of drivers. Others have reported that accident rates increased when more warning signs were added to certain stretches of dangerous road. It turns out that the more road signs there are, the less people think. Or, the more they are distracted by trying to make sense of the signs, by which time the time for appropriate action has come and gone.

Do you still remember what O.N.E. and D.R.A.W. stand for? Probably not. You remember the gist: Be friendly, be thorough, be professional, do your job well and with a good attitude. While I use mnemonics every day for patient care, and I must confess that checklists probably reduce infection rates when I’m placing central lines, the ubiquity of superfluous signs in our hospitals sends a conflicting message to our patients: We value patient care, but we need memory aids and constant reminders in order to do it. That’s a sign of something!

Dr. Faust is a second year Emergency Medicine resident at Mount Sinai Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital in New York City. He tweets at @jeremyfaust.