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Hao Hoang
English 1301-122
Dr. Sharity Nelson
“We’ve really built something” rhetorical analysis

The family medicine program director (PD) career has a high demand of commitment to the task

since the PD starts a program for the patient and ends the schedule for the patient. PD is required to show

the commitment that would affect their family duty, relationship, and any other social duty; therefore,

many PD would not be able to stay with the job and will transfer to another department. Douglas H.

Fernald, the author of “We’ve Built Something” did a qualitative study on why the PD stayed in their

position. Douglas argued that understanding the reason PD decides to stay in their position will allow for

a better understanding of factors that causes PD to leave their position. Douglas effectively supports the

article thesis with the statistical data of the PD opinion on certain topics, the high credibility is being

established to the usage of the volunteer PD, and the usage of the PD conflict is also described to invoke a

sense of sympathy from the audience to the PD.

Douglas supports the article thesis with the statistical data of the PD's opinion on certain topics to

establish the foundation for the audience's understanding of the fact that the PD remains within the

program after 12 years though might be scarce in terms of participants still staying in the program for a

certain reason. For example, Douglas provides statistical data on the member participant that has 12 years

or more experience, and Douglas provided this statistic to establish the foundation of a rich interview and

to provide this idea of ensuring the audience of the factual persuasion of the data. To ensure that the

audience understands the method that is being used to obtain these data; the author will be able to

establish a mutual understanding between the audience which allows for relatability to the argument

(Fernald et al 452). The author will then successfully gain the audience's attention by having them

understand the topic and argument rather than having the audience completely clueless about the study

method.

The Statistical data of the PD’s stay in the program for more than 12 years is not the only Statistic

data that he had provided. Douglas also provides a chart of a qualitative study statistic for the audience to
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acknowledge the different challenges that the PD faced during their career ( Fernald et al 453). Douglas

providing this chart will further enhance the audience's understanding of PD's opinion about their career,

and the audience would be able to recognize the challenge that a PD might face. Douglas showed the PD's

determination of going against the challenge and the bravery to put these into data. The audience’s focus

will be emphasized on the PD's willingness to face challenges and further relate to the PD's retention of

the career even after the hardship that they faced.

The author of “We’ve really built something” established high credibility within the article with

the usage of multiple volunteer PD within the article. For example, Douglas mentioned multiple times in

the article that the study focuses on interviewing any PD who has 12 years or more experience in the

career field of study. A PD who has 12 years or more within the field of study is certainly more

experience than a PD who is new to the field or an individual without any knowledge of the field;

therefore, Douglas used this fact to build a foundation for the article credibility and by doing this it would

make any argument that the author seems much more credible.

The author's credibility establishment also involves the usage of the foundation of other

organizations to help support the article's credibility, and it would allow a sense of assurance knowing a

credible organization is supporting the study. Douglas has provided multiple organizations within the

article such as the Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and National Research Network (NRN)

(Fernald et al 452) to build a foundation of credibility for the audience reference since as an audience, a

big and highly credible organization has much more integrity than a single individual with an argument

without any credibility. The individual might have a solid argument; however, they don't have the

credibility to convince the audience, so the author includes the organization's credibility to establish

mutual trust.

The acknowledgment of the PD's conflict with their career help invokes a sense of sympathy for

the PD, by providing the hardship that a PD encounters during their career path, the author would be able

to invoke a sense of sympathy for the PD from the audience by making the PD situation relatable. For

example, The author provides the conflict that PD encounters during their career path such as too much
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dedication is required for the job to the point of eliminating their social life to having no time for

self-care. The audience who see this would then sympathize with the PD due to their understanding of

having a social life and the busy demand of a certain job. Douglas provides this contradiction to the thesis

to further depict the ideas that PD encounter these problems in their career then the author would

counter-argue that PD accept these conditions and stay in their field because of a certain reason and

because the sympathy was established by the audience would more likely to agree with the claim of the

author and support the ideas of understanding why the PD stay in the career would explain the factor that

causes the PD to leave their position.

The author Douglas Fernald has used statistical data to inform the audience of the method that

was being used with the study, the credibility establish through volunteer PD and credible organizations,

the usage of PD conflict to obtain sympathy from the audience for the PD to inform the audience and help

them understand the PD reason for staying will allow the factor of the PD leaving to surface and obtain

relatability to the PD. The audience will now be able to use this information and understanding to obtain

and rule out any reason why the PD leave their position and further inform about this factor.
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Cite Work

Fernald, Douglas “We’ve really built something” Why Family Medicine Program Directors Stay

in Their Positions—A Qualitative Study, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 451 - 457, Academic Search Ultimate,

Accreditation (acgme.org)