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Van Pelt 1

Jake Van Pelt


Megan Keaton
ENC 2135
25 July 2016
Genres within the Medical Field
The course of my life has taken a few turns in regards to what Ive wanted to take up as
my main career. When I was younger I wanted to join the military, being slightly influenced by
my grandfather I suppose, who was a marine in World War 2. At about the time of late middle
school, I then started thinking about wanting to be an engineer. After a rough time in physics and
calculus, I then reconsidered and decided that an engineer I was not to be. My grandmother and
Father, (both on the same side of the family), are who influenced me to consider taking up a
career in the medical field as my grandmother was a navy nurse during World War 2 where she
met my grandfather. They ended up attending Florida State University from 1947 to 1948, right
after the school had become a coed school. My grandmother became a fully certified nurse and
worked in hospitals for many years after her time in the military while my grandfather was a
music major who later became a principal of an elementary school. As for my father, he has been
a medical X-ray technician for more than thirty years. Ive also had quite a fascination about the
human body and how it functions for quite some time and have often seem the body much in the
same way a mechanic sees a car. As such, I decided that if I wasnt going to be an engineer
working on a machine, then I would be another type of engineer or mechanic, being one that
works to keep the body functioning efficiently and performs major repairs after occurrences like

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accidents or to treat major issue like caner or a tumor. Currently, Im aspiring to be an open heart
surgeon as I see the heart like the engine of a car, the central system that is absolutely essential
for us to live, and quite a reliable engine it is. In wanting to become a surgeon, I understand that
there are hundreds of textbooks, research papers, and manuals that I must read to come to
understand the methods a doctor uses to record data, communicate with the patient, and publish
their findings.
The practice of medicine is among the most important fields within the STEM
community given how its progress has helped increase the average life expectancy and ability for
people to continue living normally despite abnormalities like diabetes. As put by the physicians
and surgeons of Ontario, the practice of medicine is about compassion, service, altruism, and
trustworthiness, values that have always and will continue to guide the profession (Values of the
Profession). The medical field strives to increase our understanding of human anatomy, discover
causes of certain diseases and issues like HIV and cancer, and to develop new and better ways to
cure or treat said issues and diseases. Within the medical field there are numerous careers, one of
which I hope to be someday, and Open Heart Surgeon. The job of an Open Heart Surgeon is
stressful one with numerous responsibilities. Some of these responsibilities include a high level
of understanding of human anatomy and surgical procedures, patient care, maintaining a high
level of professionalism, impersonal and communication skills, and practice-based learning and
improvement (Thoracic Surgery Training Program - Roles and Responsibilities: Cardiovascular
Track). With theThe Medical field being such an advanced field of studies, procedures, and
protocols, it has ais a diverse field of varying specialties of documents. Each type of document
has its own unique purpose and a set of factors or genre conventions that help distinguish it from

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the others. The documents that I shall be referring to are patient records, emails between
practitioner and patient, and medical research papers. With each genre comes a specific audience
with the patient records audience being other medical practitioners, the emails audience is the
patient, and the medical research papers audience are med school students, other researchers, or
other medical practitioners. Concerning the responsibilities of an Open Heart Surgeon, there are
three categories that these genres apply to being patient care, interpersonal and communication
skills, and practice-based learning and assessment. With each of these genres having a different
audience for the most part, the genre conventions of each shall be quite unique.
When a practitioner accepts a patient, one of the first priorities for them is to gain any
background information about them that may help explain their reason for hospitalization. This
is usually known as the chief concern according to Charlie Goldbergcurrent disposition, what
they may be susceptible to, or just the general facts about them like their blood type which is
crucial should a blood transfusion need to be performed (citation needs to be added) (Goldberg)..
In the case of the open heart surgeon, this pertains to patient skills and involves the reading of
their medical record to become aware of any health factors that may become an issue should the
need for surgery arise. The genre conventions of patient records are fairly straight forward with
regard to the main idea of their purpose which is to convey necessary information in a clear and
lucid mannerin concise manner, be factual in approach without much subjective opinion, and be
multimodal in how statistics are to be included as well (Sharma).. The necessary information
can be a bit more open ended with regards to minor issues like a small cut or bruise, being
dependent upon who is taking the notes. The report should not be extraneous in the sheer amount
of information compared to the standard as this often yields negative reactions from other

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healthcare professionals who may choose to skim over the report as opposed to properly reading
it word for word due to how unnecessarily elaborative the report is. According to Thomas G.
Gutheil, many clinicians dig in their heels and refrain from writing at all or from writing down
even relevant data when physicians record a monolith of information in the form of advisements
about what should be done to help the patient in forms of possible prescriptions or notes about
other possible issues that have yet to be determined (Gutheil).(citation needs to be added) As
Gruber told me, medical practitioners often get rid of records roughly every 10 years, meaning
that while the patient record for that specific visit should include important information, it
shouldnt need to include anything that may have effects a few decades from now (Gruber).
Once the report has been received or established, the medical treatment may proceed. The
communication needed to determine what steps need to be taken for the patientis then involves
another genre with in the medical community.
The creation of email has provided the medical community an invaluable assert in
keeping the practitioner and patient in contact. When a surgery or procedure needs to be done
following a conclusive examination, the patient must be notified about what is to follow and
must also give their consent regarding who can receive the information from the procedure.
While this is often done in person, any later issues that may have been discovered must still be
mentioned to the patient and hence, email enables practitioners to keep their patients updated
without needing to meet in person or over the phone. For an open heart surgeon, these
circumstances are no different however, heart surgeons are expected to establish therapeutic
relationship with patients and families in addition to simply communicating about immediate
medical factors (Thoracic Surgery Training Program - Roles and Responsibilities:

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Cardiovascular Track). Email also provides the patient with a convenient way to report home
health measurements, such as blood pressure and glucose determinations to their practitioner
(Kane, Beverley, and Sandscitation needs to be added). Additionally, emails are useful in how
they enable practitioners to be able to inform their patient about a something like an appointment
or about what needs to be discussed without the need for a face to face meeting or a phone call
because its asynchronous nature (volleying back and forth over hours or days), email helps
prevent telephone tag ing, phone call, or an immediate response (Kane, Beverley, and
Sandscitation needs to be added). It should be said that any information pertaining to the health
and wellbeing of then patient is considered confidential. With email being a rather public type of
communication, there are certain levels of security that must be established for the sake of the
patient. Some incidents that may necessitate a transfer of highly confidential information include
a situation where someone was admitted to the hospital and was able to leave a short time after
an examination due to another pressing matter, (this would be like if someone were to have fallen
after passing out and was unresponsive for a short time after; the ambulance was called and the
person was taken to the hospital; at the hospital the patient was determined to have passed out
due to heat stroke and being dehydrated, so nothing to severe; the patient was then discharged
later that day to be able to go to work the next day; however, while looking at the persons
medical records after they had left, the practitioner noticed that this may have been caused by
some other issue that was originally overlooked and as such, must be notified and potentially
scheduled to have an examination ASAP, which would require the patient to need to view and
verify confidential information), and hence the circumstances would necessitate the receiving of
personal confidential information over email as opposed to simply receiving the documents in
the mail or in person from the practitioner. The privacy laws that guide the usage of email in

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sending confidential information are established in the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act) that the medical information can only be sent to whomever the patient
consented to being able to receive the information. A violation of this would include the
practitioner, without the patients consent, deciding to Give your information to your employer
and Using or sharing your information for marketing or advertising purposes or selling your
information (Your Rights Under HIPAA). The genre conventions of emails are that like letters,
they should include a formal addressing of the recipient to begin and end with a closing. Other
conventions are that they should directly reference the patient and be written almost as though
the author is having a monologue with them. Once communication between the practitioner and
patient has been established, and consent to publish information relating to their health
conditions or procedures has been given, then the third genre of the medical field is used,
medical research papers.
Medical research papers are ultimately one of the key factors to progressing medical
technology and understanding because (they present a medical or scientific advance that can
be used a basis for other researchers to use to answer questions they have while at the same time
creating new ones (Types of Articles Publishedcitation needs to be added). They are written by
evaluating the results of procedures, patient histories, and by considering statistics that have
shown a pattern of any sort. Some of the prominent genre conventions of medical research
papers are that they are written with an observant perspective or are trying to argue the truth or
inaccuracy of something (citation needs to be added). Additionally, they contain facts from
previous research cases or statistics from large databases related to the subject of research. For
the open heart surgeon, medical research documents are important as the surgeon is expected to

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read around clinical cases, critically appraise sources of medical information, and be aware of
resources available in order to better their medical knowledge and understanding (Thoracic
Surgery Training Program - Roles and Responsibilities: Cardiovascular Track). As put by
Thomas V. Perneger and Patricia M. Hudelson, a study does not necessarily have to break
completely new ground, but it should extend previous knowledge in a useful way, or
alternatively refute existing knowledge (Perneger and Hudelson). With the papers purpose
being scientifically access a topic of interestprove a point, it needs to contain as little subjective
thought or information as possible as too much could make the paper unacceptably biased and
hence would seem more like it was written by a lawyer than someone who is a believer in
scientific fact. As put by I. Diane Cooper, There is a standard, preferred way to write an original
research paper. For format, we follow the IMRAD structure (Cooper). The IMRAD structure
refers to Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. IT is used in most scientific fields as the
structure that research papers should follow because its structure allows the paper to flow from
each part of the actual research while receiving the information in a tactful and sensible manner.
While the exact time of origin of the IMRAD structure is unknown, it was adopted as a majority
in the 1970s when its occurrence rate reached 80% with this rate having been determined by
sampling a random number of medical research papers each year from 1935 to 1985 (Sollaci).
The general concept of the research paper should be to present ones findings to the medical
community. While its not necessary to directly reference other studies similar to ones own, it
can only help in proving or rejecting the thesis of the actual research and at the same time,
increasing the credibility of the author. The paper should also include any major issues the
researcher had during their research as well as any statistics to help support their conclusion.

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While each of the genres of patient records, email, and medical research are each unique
from each other, they still are interconnected within the medical community and utilized in
different roles. The entire cycle of progress within the medical community starts with patient
being admitted for either a checkup, appointment, or emergency hospital admittance. It is under
these circumstances that the first genre of patient records is used. In the two latter cases, the
process starts differently than a checkup as the log is being recorded rather than examined. The
practitioner then goes about the process of trying to determine the dominant reason for
hospitalization (Goldberg). From here, the actual medical processes occur, being the medical
evaluation of the patient to attempt to further understand what could be wrong in addition to
what the patient reported as being the issue. If the patient needs to undergo immediate medical
operation in the case of a substantial injury like a punctured lung or compound fracture, then
protocol dictates that the patients health insurance policy be examined regarding what can be
done without their immediate consent for the sake of their greater health. During and after the
operation, further data such as heart rate, blood pressure, breath rate, and other factors pertaining
to the surgery are recorded and added to the patients medical history for future reference.
During the recovery of the patient the second genre, email, comes in to play as the
medical practitioner keeps in contact with patient after they leave the hospital or leave their
appointment. Often the patient will receive reminders through the email to keep tabs on their
current health and are told to record any problems or issues they may be experiencing like
excessive soreness weeks after a surgery near the area operated upon. It is then from here that the
final genre is utilized.

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From the results of various surgeries and procedure, medical professionals may begin to
see patterns of something occurring such a frequent side effect that negatively affects a patient
who has been taking a certain medicine for a while and has been reporting these issues for quite a
while now. This then helps progress the medical community as questions are answered that may
help take a certain medicine of the shelf that wasnt properly tested to determine possible side
effects.
While each genre has its own audience and function there is certainly a sense of value
that varies between the three genres. The genre with the highest valuable is undoubtedly the
patient records as without them, medical practitioners wouldnt have any basis of facts about a
patient that are crucial to help treat them. The second most important genre is research. Without
this, the progression of better understanding of medical practices would nearly impossible for
each practitioner to discover certain correlations and facts on their own that are crucial for even
the most basic medical procedures.
Email is the least important genre as it simply includes information that can be
transferred face to face, over the phone or through the mail. While its absence would make things
a bit more bothersome, people did just fine without it as evidenced by history prior to the
invention of email.
The medical fields various genres are each important in their own way for the medical
community to function in the way that it does today. With each having its own purpose, the
genres interact to show how important variety is in the world.

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Works Citied
Cooper, I. Diane. "How to Write an Original Research Paper (and Get It Published)." Journal of
the Medical Library Association: JMLA. Medical Library Association, Apr. 2015. Web.
01 Aug. 2016.
Goldberg, Charlie. "A Practical Guide to Clinical Medicine." A Practical Guide to Clinical
Medicine. University of California San Diego, 15 Oct. 2015. Web. 21 July 2016.
Gruber. Nick. Personal interview. 23 Jul. 2016
Gutheil, Thomas G. "Fundamentals of Medical Record Documentation." Psychiatry (Edgmont).
Matrix Medical Communications, Nov. 2004. Web. 21 July 2016.
Kane, Beverley, and Daniel Z. Sands. "Guidelines for the Clinical Use of Electronic Mail with
Patients." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA.
American Medical Informatics Association, Jan.-Feb. 1998. Web. 20 July 2016.
MacLean, Catherine H., Louie Rachel, Shekelle Paul G., Roth Carol P., Saliba Debra, Higashi
Takahiro, Adams John, Chang John T., Kamberg Caren J., Solomon David H., Young Roy
T., and Wenger Neil S. "Comparison of Administrative Data and Medical Records to
Measure the Quality of Medical Care Provided to Vulnerable Older Patients." Medical
Care 44.2 (2006): 141-48. Web.

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Perneger, Thomas V., and Patricia M. Hudelson. "International Journal for Quality in Health
Care." Writing a Research Article: Advice to Beginners. Ed. Yu-Chuan Li. Oxford
University Press, 18 May 2004. Web. 26 July 2016.
Robey, Thomas. "AMA Journal of Ethics." VM. American Medical Association, July 2011.
Web. 20 July 2016.
Sharma, Suhasini. How to Become a Competent Medical Writer? Perspectives in Clinical
Research1.1 (2010): 3337. Print.
Sollaci, Luciana B., and Mauricio G. Pereira. "The Introduction, Methods, Results, and
Discussion (IMRAD) Structure: A Fifty-year Survey." Journal of the Medical Library
Association. Medical Library Association, July 2004. Web. 05 Aug. 2016.
"Thoracic Surgery Training Program - Roles and Responsibilities: Cardiovascular
Track." Thoracic Surgery Training Program - Roles and Responsibilities:
Cardiovascular Track. Penn Medicine, 2016. Web. 04 Aug. 2016.
"Types of Articles Published." Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. Yale School of Medicine,
n.d. Web. 26 July 2016.
"Values of the Profession." Home. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, n.d. Web.
04 Aug. 2016.
Yamey, Gavin. "How to Write a Research Paper and Get It Published." How to Write a Research
Paper and Get It Published. BMJ Learning, 22 Nov. 2007. Web. 26 July 2016.

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Secretary, HHS Office of the. "Your Rights Under HIPAA." HHS.gov. U.S. Department of
Health & Human Services, n.d. Web. 01 Aug. 2016.Works Citied

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