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Noshin Chowdhary
Instructor Name
Literature
23 January 2020
Writing in Medical Field
Medical writing
Medical writing includes recorded scientific documents of various types which may include research or regulatory documents, literature about details of a disease or ailment for the general public, journal articles, health or medical articles for news periodicals or content for healthcare websites and blogs CITATION Tay15 \l 1033 (Taylor). The language used in the documents is kept highly formal due to the needs of the medical profession. Medical writers need a detailed knowledge of the terminologies and jargon used in the pieces of this writing. The demand for medical writing is growing steadily in the healthcare and pharmaceutical markets. Writers can either work independently or ask the services of a professional to record or present their findings. There are even graduates outside the medical field that are considering a career in medical writing.
According to a few medical journals, active voice is preferred when it comes to recording medical findings. Many medical practitioners agree to this notion and say that passive voice is less direct, concise or clear than active voice and that the recording of data in passive voice is a matter of following an old tradition rather than being considered a rigid tenant of scientific data recording CITATION TDM15 \l 1033 (TD). Often the research ideas are backed by scientific evidence that makes it often preferable for the person recording the data to be deeply cultured in the practices of studying in a lab or analysis of a medical text.
Every often, the medical scientists and pharmacists need to reach out to the general public that are often not educated to understand simple instructions, let alone the complex and often difficult medical language. Therefore, medical writing also includes numerous visual aids like images, charts, graphs and even video clips that help the majority of people to understand what the writer is trying to convey to them. These visual aids also serve the purpose to help in further research should there be a need for comparative or additional research in the future. Often the written material is accomplished by a list of cited works that are usually recorded in the APA style of citation. Sometimes, the writer may have to use other styles, such as MLA or Harvard style of citation. This list at the end of the documents is used to cross-reference the stated facts and figures in the document and also aid others should they wish to conduct their separate researches on the same or relevant subject.
Analysis of Workplace Document
The most commonly seen piece of medical writing used in a workplace that everyone needs to know about is no doubt the lab test reports that are used to make decisions about the treatment of a disease. In certain countries, such as the US, the inland laws allow the patients or their representatives to access the medical test reports even before they are sent to be viewed by their doctors, with the caveat that they can prove their identity to the said labs. Things makes it highly important that the patients must learn to educate herself so that she may be able to decipher the message that is conveyed in the medical test report.
The language used in these reports is often in the form of facts and figures that do not make it easy for an average person to understand what the report is trying to convey. Nevertheless, these reports contain all the details that are required by the doctors, and in some nurses, to suggest a carefully assessed dose of medicine or administration of a medical procedure that may prove vital for the survival of a patient. This makes the medical lab reports an essential part of the treatment of a patient. In some cases, these reports are also asked by the nurses and the doctors before starting a surgical procedure on a patient.
Many students of pathological studies often pose a question that how should a medical report should be organized so that it is not difficult to read. This is easier said than done. Each hospital has its method of recording data in a medical lab test report, but often it is recorded in a temporal fashion that puts the latest medical events at the forefront of the report. Some reports also have summaries of the patient's medical history with the institution so that the medical treatment is carried out in an orderly fashion that wastes the minimum time of the patient.
There are many styles of format for writing such reports. But certain elements are essential as per the legal requirements of the medical profession. These include the date and time when the report was prepared, the full name of the patient/subject along with all her information that is necessary in the course of treatment, or for insurance claims (in some cases), the person who prepared the report and the doctor who may have suggested the preparation of the said report, and most important, the certificate of authorship and authenticity of the said report. Some cases may require the pathologists to create a special report that adheres to specific legal or medical requirements.
The tone used in these types of documents is highly formal as is the purpose of these reports. That is why the language used in these documents is colorless and rigid. This is mainly since these reports play a vital role in preserving the health, in some rare cases, the life of the patient, for whom the doctor or nurse requests the report. These reports are kept as brief as possible so that the required treatments could be administered as quickly and efficiently as possible to give some relief to the patient in question.
Normally, these documents are generated at a snail's pace. This is not because the material in these documents take a long time to write. But the reason is that the procedures done to generate accurate medical results are often complex and require some time to be completed to yield results. Since this is a job for extreme responsibility, so the procedures are not allowed to rush at all. Another thing that must be noted that these documents cite a detailed array of facts and figures that are relevant to the treatment of the patient, but even then, these documents do not use any type of graphs, images or other visual aids. There are exceptions like pregnancy and heart-related tests, but these are few and far between. After the document is prepared, they are often double-checked to avoid disastrous consequences.
Scholarly Article Analysis
To understand the role of medical writing in our lives, let us analyze an article about Acute Kidney Injury CITATION Mac19 \l 1033 (MacDonald). The writers of this article are experts in the field of nephrology, surgery, and hypertension, the pre-requisites needed for explaining and adding to the knowledge that is required to discuss such a serious subject.
The necessary purpose of the article is to add to the knowledge of the people that want to know about the Acute Kidney Injury and its various implications like its role in renal impairment and its negative effects on the liver. So, we can say that the article is more about addition rather than the revision of the subject matter. Another thing that is important about the article is the amount of previous data that the writers had to go through to give the causes of the Acute Kidney in the first place before offering further effects of the disease on the human body. For one, the writers presented the data of no less than seven institutions about the threshold of the levels of various components and liquids in the human body that indicate the functions of the kidney.
Like all the articles that deal with results of formal notion, the arrangement of all the facts and figures are kept in a fashion that adds to the meaning of the question posed by the research. First, the writers introduced the main subject of the topic in detail to help develop an understanding of the reader about the subject that is about to be discussed in detail. After that, the ability to gauge the problem and the indicators that should be observed are described in detail. When all the ideas are carefully cemented, then the writer explains the problems that they pose in their thesis statement along with the solutions that can be utilized to eliminate the said problem of Acute Kidney Injury.
The Delivery of the knowledge is also kept coherent so that the intended audience can make sense of the information that was delivered after painstaking research of the writers. The style of delivery is perhaps the most important thing in this type of writing if the message needs to be properly conveyed. Lastly, the style of the writing is kept simple and formal. This serves the twofold purpose of keeping the research easy to convey and emphasize the fact that the topic and purpose of the research are serious and therefore should be taken as such.
Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY MacDonald, Andrew J., Nadim, Mitra K., Durand, Françoisc, Karvellas, Constantine J. "Acute kidney injury in cirrhosis implications for liver transplantation." Current Opinion in Critical Care 25.2 (2019): 171-178.
Taylor, Robert B. What Every Medical Writer Needs to Know. Springer Publishers, 2015. <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283488675_What_Every_Medical_Writer_Needs_to_Know>.
TD, Minton. In defense of the passive voice in medical writing. 2015.
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