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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 to establish the

foundation for a mutual understanding with the audience. Douglas's usage of statistical data establishes an

understanding of the audience toward the method being used to prove Doughlas's claim. For example,

Douglas provides statistical data on the member participant that has 12 years or more to establish the

foundation of a rich interview. The data was set up in a way that ensures the audience understands the

distribution of the test participant ensuring the audience to understands that the method is being carried

out in a fair manner; the author established a mutual understanding with the audience which allows for

relatability to the argument (Douglas et al 452). The author uses the statistical data from this page to

persuade the audience's attention toward this topic and further enhance the approval of the claim that he

makes later on in the article, by providing the statistics to entice the logical sense within an audience the

author had fully applied the use of logos into the article promote mutual understanding. 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.
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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

acknowledge the different challenges that the PD faced during their career ( Douglas 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. Douglas's action of

providing this statistical data invoke a deep sense of logical agreement through seeing the PD approve and

disapprove of a certain opinion while focusing on the audience retention of the hardship that the PD faced

during their career in a way that invokes respect from the audience persuading the audience mindset to

understand the claim.

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 then Douglas will establish a sense of trust

from the credibility and with this application of ethos from Douglas, the audience then is more likely to

agree with the claim.

Douglas also uses the involvement of other organizations to help support the article's credibility

which would allow a sense of assurance for the audience being formed knowing that 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) (Douglas 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. Seeing that one individual might have a solid argument; however, they don't have the
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credibility to convince the audience; Douglas includes the organization's credibility to establish ethos

further enhancing the argument with support and credibility rather groundless claim without the support

of an expert confirmation.

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

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 the contradiction to the thesis

to further depict the ideas that PD encounter these problems in their career then Douglas 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. Douglas's convenient set up of an example of passion-provoking or

the use of pathos to make the audience feel compassion toward the PD who encounter problems in their

career path but still stay on the career path making the audience feel a sense of respect and will be more

open to argument and claim.

The author Fernald. H. Douglas 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 understand and rule out any reason why the PD leave their

position and further stay informed about this factor while being open-minded about the argument that is

established by Douglas.
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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)