Teaching Writing in the Health Professions Perspectives, Problems, and Practices

This collection provides a research-based guide to instructional practices for writing in the health professions, promoting faculty development and bringing together perspectives from writing studies, technical communication, and health humanities.

With employment in health-care sectors booming, writing instruction tailored for the health professions is in high demand. Writing instruction is critical in the health professions because health professionals, current and aspiring, need to communicate persuasively with patients, peers, mentors, and others. Writing instruction can also help cultivate professional identity, reflective practice, empathy, critical thinking, confidence, and organization, as well as research skills. This collection prepares faculty and administrators to meet this demand. It combines conceptual development of writing for the health professions as an emergent interdiscipline with evidence-based practices for instructors in academic, clinical, and community settings.

Teaching Writing in the Health Professions is an essential resource for instructors, scholars, and program administrators in health disciplines, professional and technical communication, health humanities, and interdisciplinary writing studies. It informs the teaching of writing in programs in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and allied health, public health, and other related professions.

Introduction Writing in the health professions: An emergent interdiscipline for teachers Part I: Writing in medicine and public health 1 Teaching medical students to write proper clinical notes using expectancy-value theory 2 What can we learn about ‘advanced literacy for research’ in two Colombian graduate programs? 3 Supporting medical writers in the twenty-first century Part II: Writing in nursing 4 Developing students’ professional identity through writing and peer review 5 Nursing simulations and intermediary genres: Bridging students’ classroom and clinical writing 6 Semi-embedding’ writing center specialists in a masters level nursing course to improve perceptions of writing support 7 Writing-related threshold concepts in doctoral nursing education Part III: Writing in allied health and pharmacy 8 When the classroom is the workplace: Developing writing curricula for EMS and fire service training programs 9 Online instruction on scholarly writing and library research in a physician assistant program: Laying the foundation for developing academic literacies and examining evidence-based research 10 Enhancing communication competencies: A model for pharmacy and writing and communication center partnerships Part IV: Writing in interprofessional contexts 11 Teaching culturally sensitive care through reflective writing 12 Communicating ‘patient-centered care’: A case study for collaborative writing in the health professions 13 Graphic medicine: Theory, utility, and practice in interprofessional contexts 14 Promoting writing through teacherless writing groups Conclusion The ‘prognosis’ of writing in the health professions

Michael J. Madson is an assistant professor in the technical communication program at Arizona State University. He teaches courses related to health-care writing and user experience.