Interdisciplinary Communication in a Literature and Medicine Course: Personalizing the Discourse of Medicine      

To provide modest insight into whether or not reading literature helps medical students communicate more effectively in the physician-patient encounter, I conducted an ethnographic study of medical students taking a required three-hour literature and medicine course. This article will demonstrate that although these medical students were embedded in the discourse of medicine, reflective writing enabled them to conceive medicine as an interpretive, personal, and idiosyncratic activity rather than as a stagnant diagnosis-based process.

Welch, Kathleen E. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Biomedical>Scientific Communication

Making Disability Visible: How Disability Studies Might Transform the Medical and Science Writing Classroom      

This article describes how disability studies can be used in a medical and science writing class to critically examine the assumptions of scientific discourse.  An emerging, interdisciplinary field, disability studies draws on feminist, postmodern, and post-colonial theory and extends their critiques to the medicalization of disability.  Deconstructing the medical model of disability helps students understand how science is socially constructed.  After conceptualizing disability studies, this essay discusses sample disability-related classroom activities, readings, and writing assignments.

Wilson, James C. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Teaching Students to Design Information About Difficult Subjects: Public Information About Pediatric AIDS  

Advanced technical communication students analyzed information about pediatric AIDS that was designed for dtrerent segments of the public. They then produced individual projects for local segments of the university and surrounding community. Through this assignment, students learned the importance of community standards in designing accurate and locally 'acceptable' communication about a difficult subject.

Porter, Lynnette R. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Teaching Technical Writing to University Students Using the Medical Report  

Technical and medical writing share many similar properties. Using a medical report assignment, in which students research and write about a physical or mental disease, is an effective tool that introduces the principles of technical writing. The assignment for lower division students is to write in the IMRAD format, while upper division students compose a report integrating multiple sources cited in CBE documentation style. In each case, adhering to fact-based, clear, audience-appropriate language in a technical format provides the student with valuable practice writing in this important genre.

Mizrahi, Janet. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Writing Across the Chemistry Curriculum  

While chemistry faculty agree that writing is an important professional skill, few know how to teach it. They lack a strategy for incorporating writing into their courses, skill in designing eflective writing assignments, and knowledge of evaluation methods. Our practical manual, funded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tennessee Knoxville, will provide chemistry and other science faculty with these skills along with a set of ready-to-use assignments for their courses. The manual will allow chemistry faculty to teach writing purposefully and effectively, focusing on the scientific content while systematically developing this all-important skill.

Kovac, Jeffrey and Donna Walter Sherwood. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical