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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 the discovery of a 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 numerous documents that I must read to come to understand the
methods a doctor uses to record data, communicate with
The Medical field is 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 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. 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 usually
known as the chief concern according to 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).. The genre
conventions of patients 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

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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 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 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. 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 Daniel Z. 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

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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), helps prevent telephone tag ing, phone call, or an immediate response
(Kane, Beverley, and Daniel Z. Sandscitation needs to be added). 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. As put
by Perneger and Hudleson, 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, Thomas V., and Patricia M. Hudelson). With the papers purpose being

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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.
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 of 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

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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.
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
these, 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.

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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.

Works Citied

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Goldberg15, 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. N. (2016, July 23). Interview
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.
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.

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"Types of Articles Published." Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. Yale School of Medicine,
n.d. Web. 26 July 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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