d’Ayral 1

Isabelle d’Ayral

Professor Julie Kopp

ENC 1102

20 November 2019

Communication in The Field of Medicine

Introduction

Communication in the medical field is essential in order to maintain efficiency and foster

good relationships between patients with their doctors and nurses. Today, in the ever-changing

workplace, technology has replaced most handwritten documents and increased the amount of

textual information recorded as well as the way we communicate in the medical field. New

technology systems have been implemented in hospitals, clinics, and other medical institutions.

Medically trained professionals, administrators, and technicians use these systems as a

community for the betterment of human health. As a discourse community, medically trained

individuals achieve their objective by transcribing patient information, publishing research

findings, journals and regulatory documents (Sharma). Since communication is undeniably a

core aspect of the medical field, this discourse community has conducted numerous research

studies to identify the importance of good communication and more importantly what factors

into good communication and how can it be improved. Academic articles such as “Let's Talk

about Improving Communication in Healthcare” tends to focus on verbal communication, which

is researched in abundance. What fails to be the focus of these research topics is written

communication. The lack of research on written communication in the medical field is sorely

needed because written communication is more prevalent over verbal in specialized and primary

care (Vermeir). In addition to this, written communication is still expanding to a broader scope
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due to the increase in new technology. Therefore, my research focus is to not only remedy the

lack of content provided by my discourse community but to also explain how verbal

communication is transcribed to written and what makes for effective communication in the field

of medicine.

Accredited universities all over the world have deemed effective communication as a vital

clinical skill that needs to be taught to men and women studying to enter the medical field. To

understand what factors into communicating effectively, one needs not to go no further than the

university communication curriculum taught to medical students. Ferreira-Padilla and his

colleagues have explained in their academic article, “Communication Skills in Medicine: Where

Do We Come from and Where Are We Going?”, that clinical communication skills can be

learned and mastered by studying and practicing (Ferreira-Padilla et al.). Dr. Suhasini also

manages to highlight the importance of written communication by explaining how the demand

for medical writers has gone up due to more research being done than ever before, especially by

pharmaceutical and biomedical companies.

While communication in the medical field is undeniably essential, different things factor into

good communication, both verbal and written. For instance, there are specific requirements

needed for effective, specifically written, communication. For instance, those writing any type of

medical form, document, research, and etcetera must have knowledge of medical concepts, how

they should clearly present information to their target audience, and knowledge of specific

writing requirements for the type of medical document they are writing (Sharma). My research

has also shown that good written communication means that written documents should be

assessed to reduce redundancy and they should be tracked and organized so that they can be

communicated effectively and clearly (“Written Communication”). In addition to this,

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Methods

To observe how the medical discourse community creates content, I have taken into

consideration multiple credible articles, journals and research studies to compare and contrast in

order to better analyze good written communication in the field of medicine. I used these types

of data for my research because it allowed me to cover a wide scope of information presented in

a manner of different ways. Specifically, the type of primary research I used were all written and

approved by doctors, universities, or national organizations. Using combinations of different

types of primary and secondary research, I was able to create main points supported by doctors

and accredited institutions as well as compare common trends in research and different methods

and formats commonly used by medical professionals to communicate. This method worked best

for me because I was able to gather medical professionals’ personal reviews over my topic as

well as statistical data from institutions like hospitals, universities, national organizations and

health insurance companies to support their claims and come to my own findings. For instance,

in comparing all of my compiled research, I was able to come to the point that all topic-related

documents I found supported communication as a key clinical skill with effective impacts on the

medical field. No counterpoint could be strongly supported against this claim. Similarly, when

comparing research studies such as those mentioned in “Let's Talk about Improving

Communication in Healthcare” by Deland and company and Impact of Communication in

Healthcare, I was able to determine using statistical data some key factors for good

communication and the results of poor communication in the medical field. Using all of these

methods, I was able to discern the impact of communication in the field of medicine and what

factors into good written communication.

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Results

The data I collected was extremely beneficial for supporting my main research question: why

communication in the medical field is so important? From what I have analyzed and researched,

I have concluded that proper communication may have one general definition but the

requirements to be qualified as good communication varies from document to document. This

being said, my point is while proper communication is simply defined as succeeding in

transferring and receiving information on what factors into doing this is more complex

depending on the circumstance and instance. Regarding this, my research was aimed to help

explain why communication has such a strong impact in the medical field and what are the

general factors of proper communication. In researching these points I also had to analyze a

variety of forms of written communication that made communication in the medical field such a

broad study.

Impact of Communication

The U.S. National Library of Health and Medicine defines effective communication as “The

heart of the art of medicine” (Koul). A physician’s ability to obtain relevant information from

their patients may be the deciding factor as to whether or not he or she will diagnose their

patients accurately or not. In addition to this, the physician must be able to employ proper

communication in order to improve the chances of patient adherence, satisfaction, safety and

reduce the risk of malpractices as shown in the statistical data collected from the supporting

sources in Impact of Communication in Healthcare. Whereas proper communication has a

positive impact, poor communication often leads to disastrous results. For example, my research

has brought me to conclude that failure to provide proper communication in medical institutions
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has been proven in recent studies to contribute to over 7,149 cases of medical malpractice, cost

over $1.7 billion dollars in hospital costs and upsettingly cost the lives of 2,000 individuals every

few years (“Understanding the Importance of Communication in Health Care”). This being said,

my research has brought me to the result that communication in the field of medicine has a larger

impact on a larger array of things than many may have previously assumed.

Factors of Good Communication

In my research, I have come to the result that all good communication is clear, empathetic,

tailored for target audience for all parties involved. Some of my sources such as “Written

Communication” and “Let's Talk about Improving Communication in Healthcare” helped me

come to that conclusion because the first mentioned academic journal discusses most of the

themes proper communication uses and these factors I mentioned all sublime them. In addition to

this, the later mentioned article focuses on statistical data to compare these findings. For

instance, “Let's Talk about Improving Communication in Healthcare” identified common

miscommunication errors and organized them by frequency. In all of the errors, all three

forethought factors failed to have adhered. For each miscommunication in several types of

settings with different forms of written communication, all poor communication occurs because

there was a lack of clarity, empathy, and failed to be understood by its targeted audience.

Conclusion

In essence, communication is employed every day in the medical discourse community,

whether it be in hospitals, clinics, medical education, journalism, research documents or

regulatory documents. Effective communication can make the difference in diagnosing a disease
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or health issue early or late as well as many other factors. What is most important about

communication in the medical field, whether verbal or written, is that it qualifies as good

communication. Good communication is communication that effectively gets its point across to

another person or institution. Findings have shown that many things factor into effective

communication, specifically being understandable to its target audience, empathetic, clear,

organized, meeting standard document requirements and etcetera.

Written communication is a very important topic to research because it prevails over verbal in

specialized and primary care and the amount of written communication is steadily increasing in

the medical field due to new technology and systems (Vermeir). Many studies have already been

conducted to support the claim that knowing how to effectively communicate verbally in the

medical field has been proven to have a positive impact on numerous factors. However, the

research done on written communication in the medical field is sparse and usually mentioned as

an afterthought to verbal communication. Though my research’s main objective is to fulfill this

lack of research on the topic of written communication in the medical field, still more research

needs to be done as this is a continuously expanding field with a large array of different branches

and numerous forms of written communication to fulfill different roles. I suggest that more

research be conducted for these different medical branches and forms of writing in addition to

more academic articles and journals being produced to compare these findings. Researching

specifically how verbal communication pertains to written is an aspect of this vital question that

should be researched as well, through clinical settings or from compiling primary research

statistics.
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Works Cited

Deland, Emme, et al. “Let's Talk about Improving Communication in Healthcare.” Columbia

Medical Review, Center for Research and Digital Scholarship, Columbia University, 25

May 2015, medicalreview.columbia.edu/article/communication-healthcare/.

Ferreira-Padilla, Guillermo, et al. “Communication Skills in Medicine: Where Do We Come

from and Where Are We Going?” Croatian Medical Journal, Croatian Medical Schools,

June 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4500973/.

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“Guidelines for Improving Communication Skills and the Patient-Doctor Relationship.” Faculty

Staff Website, www.med.unc.edu/medicine/gi/faculty-staff-

website/teaching/conferences/archives/fgid-conference-archives/guidelines-for-

improving-communication-skills-and-the-patient-doctor-relationship/.

Impact of Communication in Healthcare. Institute for Healthcare and Communication, July

2011, healthcarecomm.org/about-us/impact-of-communication-in-healthcare/.

“Understanding the Importance of Communication in Health Care.” Regis College Online, 21

Nov. 2018, online.regiscollege.edu/blog/importance-communication-health-care/.

Koul, Parvaiz A. “Effective Communication, the Heart of the Art of Medicine.” Lung India :

Official Organ of Indian Chest Society, Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd, 2017,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5234211/.

Sharma, Suhasini. “How to Become a Competent Medical Writer?” Perspectives in

Clinical Research, Medknow Publications, Jan. 2010,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149406/.

“Written Communication.” AHRQ, U.S. HHS: Agency for Healthcare Research and

Quality, 29 Jan. 2015, www.ahrq.gov/health-literacy/quality-

resources/tools/literacy-toolkit/impguide/impguide-written.html.

Vermeir, P, et al. “Communication in Healthcare: a Narrative Review of the Literature

and Practical Recommendations.” International Journal of Clinical Practice, John

Wiley and Sons Inc., Nov. 2015,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758389/.
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