Distortion and the Politics of Pain Relief: A Habermasian Analysis of Medicine in the Media    

This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain relief for women in labor. Using Habermas's concepts, the authors argue that distortion of scientific and medical information originated in the New England Journal of Medicine article that first reported the study's results. Thus, their analysis aims to complicate the assumption that such distortion starts only with public reporting and to expose the ways that scientific or medical research from the beginning can be reported to either facilitate or preclude public debate and understanding of complex issues.

Koerber, Amy, E. Jonathan Arnett and Tamra Cumbie. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2008). Articles>Publishing>Biomedical>Ethics

Doc, I've Been Looking at Some Web Sites--So What Should I Believe?  

Because anyone, from nationally renowned physicians to your next-door neighbor, can post health information online, readers need to be selective when taking advice from medical web sites. Several non-profit and government agencies have developed guidelines to help readers as they evaluate health and medical information online. Some researchers have also begun to study the ways that readers actually judge the credibility of web sites. Recommendations from heuristic guidelines and recent empirical research have been distilled into a list of guidelines for writers and editors.

Freeman, Krisandra S. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Education>Biomedical>Online

Drug Information Association: XML Resources for Life Sciences Pro

The Drug Information Association (DIA) has compiled a series of useful articles designed to help you understand XML and related technologies. Don't worry! You don't have to be an IT guru to understand XML. The resources provided are written in laymen's terms and geared towards life sciences professionals, but may prove beneficial to professionals in other industries and vertical markets.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Group, The (2004). Articles>Content Management>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Empirical Studies Assessing the Quality of Health Information for Consumers on the World Wide Web: A Systematic Review

The quality of consumer health information on the World Wide Web is an important issue for medicine, but to date no systematic and comprehensive synthesis of the methods and evidence has been performed.

Eysenbach, Gunther, John Powell, Oliver Kuss and Eun-Ryoung Sa. JAMA (2002). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Online

Essential Pharmaceutical URLs and Organizations

Systems and network engineers, developers, project managers, and technical staff have been hit hard since the technology bubble burst. Since Y2K there has been an influx of competitive workers on H1B visas who have stayed and now have green cards. Now there is also outsourcing to India, Bulgaria, Russia, Ireland, the Philippines etc.

Marie, Cecile. MetroVoice (2003). Careers>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Evolution of the Emergency Medical Services Profession: A Case Study of EMS Run Reports      

Often the first of many documents written about patients, the emergency medical service’s run report is a preprinted form on which providers record the events of an emergency. These forms are important analytically because they represent the practices and interests of the multiple professions engaged in caring for critically ill or injured patients. This article examines the historical evolution of a shared medical form and its impact on the professionals who use it.

Munger, Roger H. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Design>Information Design>Biomedical

An Examination of Factors That Affect the Credibility of Online Health Information    

The study reported in this article examined the effect of street address and external links on perceptions of credibility of a Web page. The study attempted to determine how readers process these cues by drawing on key theories in both technical communication and psychology, including the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The article includes a review of relevant literature on which the experiment reported here was based, hypotheses concerning the expected outcomes of the experiment, the methodology, the results, and a discussion of the results. Finally, conclusions and implications for future research are discussed.

Freeman, Krisandra S. and Jan H. Spyridakis. Technical Communication Online (2004). Design>Web Design>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Florence Nightingale's Visual Rhetoric in the Rose Diagrams  

Florence Nightingale is usually pictured as an angelic nurse tending to British soldiers in military hospitals during the Crimean War. Although Nightingale was indeed a tender of soldiers, she was also an administrator, advocate for the common soldier, and proponent of the use of statistics and information design. This article examines Nightingale's rose diagrams, which she designed following her service as the director of nurses at a field hospital in the Crimean War. When the war ended, Nightingale was asked by the queen to write a report on the poor sanitary conditions and make recommendations for reform. When, after six months, the government did not act on the reforms, Nightingale decided to write an annex to the report, in which she would include her invention, the rose diagrams. Nightingale's ultimate success in persuading the government to institute reforms is an illustration of the power of visual rhetoric, as well as an example of Nightingale's own passionate resolve to right what she saw as a grievous wrong.

Brasseur, Lee. Technical Communication Quarterly (2005). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Technical Illustration

Graphics and Ethos in Biomedical Journals    

This article describes a study that examined the tables and figures in articles from a basic research journal, The Journal of Cell Biology, and compared them to tables and figures from an applied medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine. Comparison of graphics between the two journals shows sharp differences in terms of range of graphics types, visual consistency within and between articles, or use of color. As the articles take into account what is needed by different audiences, the graphics help to build the credibility of the journal. The study also addresses the question of how scientific visuals contribute to the persuasiveness of a writer, looking at how the graphics within an article affect the credibility or ethos of the writer.

Hutto, David. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Research>Biomedical>Visual Rhetoric

Guidelines for Medical and Health Information Sites on the Internet  

Access to medical information via the Internet has the potential to speed the transformation of the patient-physician relationship from that of physician authority ministering advice and treatment to that of shared decision making between patient and physician. However, barriers impeding this transformation include wide variations in quality of content on the Web, potential for commercial interests to influence online content, and uncertain preservation of personal privacy. To address these issues, the American Medical Association (AMA) has developed principles to guide development and posting of Web site content, govern acquisition and posting of online advertising and sponsorship, ensure site visitors' and patients' rights to privacy and confidentiality, and provide effective and secure means of e-commerce. While these guidelines were developed for the AMA Web sites and visitors to these sites, they also may be useful to other providers and users of medical information on the Web. These principles have been developed with the understanding that they will require frequent revision to keep pace with evolving technology and practices on the Internet. The AMA encourages review and feedback from readers, Web site visitors, policymakers, and all others interested in providing reliable quality information via the Web.

Winker, Margaret A., Annette Flanagin, Bonnie Chi-Lum, John White, Karen Andrews, Robert L. Kennett, Catherine D. DeAngelis and Robert A. Musacchio. JAMA (2000). Articles>Web Design>Biomedical

Health and Safety Information for Specialized Vocational Audiences  

Using examples from commercial fishing and farming, this article shows how models of health beliefs and risk communication can inform the creation of health and safety materials and campaigns for specialized vocational audiences. These models state that risk communication efforts must balance strong statements of risk with equally strong statements of ways to reduce or avoid risk if they are to motivate change. Audience research can help communicators address attitudes that impair workers’ perceptions of risk, as well as workplace practices, norms, and conditions that the limit the methods that can be used to reduce risk.

Freeman, Krisandra S. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Writing>Biomedical>Risk Communication

Review: Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine    

Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is a fine introduction to the burgeoning field of medical rhetoric and an excellent addition to the annals of rhetorical criticism in general. Written by Judy Z. Segal from the University of British Columbia, the work is solidly grounded in the mainstay rhetorical traditions of Burke, Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca, Booth, and Aristotle. But Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine is hardly conservative in its mission or methodology, and the result is a work that captures the essence of discursive encounters in medicine, especially those between doctors and patients and their families, and yet unabashedly attempts to reform these encounters for the betterment of all parties involved.

Jablonski, Jeffrey and Michael J. Zerbe. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Reviews>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Health Care Institutions, Communication, and Physicians' Experience of Managed Care    

This study uses the institutional theory of organizational communication (ITOC) to explain physicians' reactions to managed care. ITOC posits that enduring beliefs and practices both transcend and shape particular organizations and organizing. The authors find that physicians' institutional beliefs moderated the negative relationship between managed care medical practice and satisfaction. ITOC also posits that the negotiation of institutional, environmental, organizational, and individual factors occurs through communication. Controlling for these factors, communication with managed care representatives remains significantly and positively related to satisfaction. The results provide support for ITOC and macro approaches to organizational communication research and offer insights for the management of professionals in general and physicians in particular.

Barbour, Joshua B. and John C. Lammers. Management Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Health Care Prescriptions for a Terminal Job

What do you do about medical insurance coverage if you are laid off?

Randolph, Brett W.F. Boston Broadside (1992). Careers>Unemployment>Biomedical

Health Risk Communication

With government getting more involved with healthcare and organizations collecting information about the risks of some diseases, there is a plethora of information about heath risk that must be made accessible to the general public.

Albing, Bill. KeyContent.org (2004). Articles>Risk Communication>Biomedical>Civic

Health Risk Communication

A bibliography of 847 citations in health risk communication.

Zorn, Marcia and Scott Ratzan. NIH (2000). Resources>Bibliographies>Risk Communication>Biomedical

How Usability Information Can Improve Clinical Information Systems  

This paper describes a usability engineering program of integrated laboratory and ethnographic studies for collecting user data about a clinical information system. The authors evaluated MIRACLE (Medical Information Retrieval Application for Clinical Enhancement), developed by Philips Medical Systems; physicians and allied health personnel can access MIRACLE from their offices to obtain data about their patients who use hospital services. After an initial heuristic evaluation, we conducted two usability tests and weekly ethnographic interviews with physicians and hospital staff during the software alpha test. Our experience resulted in guidelines for conducting usability programs with medical professionals.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L., Deborah Hinderer and Phillip Scarborough. Tec-Ed, Inc. (1999). Articles>Usability>Biomedical

Implementation of Medical Research Findings Through Insulin Protocols: Initial Findings from an Ongoing Study of Document Design and Visual Display    

Medical personnel in hospital intensive care units routinely rely on protocols to deliver some types of patient care. These protocol documents are developed by hospital physicians and staff to ensure that standards of care are followed. Thus, the protocol document becomes a _de facto_ standing order, standing in for the physician's judgment in routine situations. This article reports findings from Phase I of an ongoing study exploring how insulin protocols are designed and used in intensive care units to transfer medical research findings into patient care 'best practices.' We developed a taxonomy of document design elements and analyzed 29 insulin protocols to determine their use of these elements. We found that 93% of the protocols used tables to communicate procedures for measuring glucose levels and administering insulin. We further found that the protocols did not adhere well to principles for designing instructions and hypothesized that this finding reflected different purposes for instructions (training) and protocols (standardizing practice).

Longo, Bernadette, Craig Weinert and T. Kenny Fountain. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Document Design>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Imprecise Frequency Descriptors and the Miscomprehension of Prescription Drug Advertising: Public Policy and Regulatory Implications    

Two separate studies, conducted among a total sample of 147 adults, explored the communicative effectiveness of imprecise frequency descriptors within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising. Study One used imprecise frequency descriptors to describe level of side effect occurrence and then asked consumers to numerically estimate the frequency of side effect occurrence. A comparison of consumers estimated to actual level of incidence indicated that they are unable to accurately estimate level of side effect occurrence when those levels are described by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Study Two presented consumers with a list of side effects preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Consumers were then asked to estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence. The results indicated that consumers are unable to accurately estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence when a list of side effects are preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. The pattern of consumer response across both studies indicates that when imprecise frequency descriptors are used to describe the incidence of side effects within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising, consumers estimate likelihood of side effect occurrence on the basis of an intuitive judgment of the side effect s commonness/severity within the general population.

Davis, Joel J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Marketing

Improving Medical Treatment Procedures  

Technical writers should be alert for opportunities to improve documentation in one technical field by using appropriate techniques from other fields. In this paper, the author presents ways of improving medical treatment procedures by using elements from engineering procedures, including introductions, safety sections, warnings, conditional (branching) statements, and notes.

Gibbs, Judith M. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Biomedical>Policies and Procedures

Instructions to Authors in the Health Sciences

These pages contain links to Web sites which provide instructions to authors for over 3,500 journals in the health and life sciences. All links are to 'primary sources,' that is to publishers or organizations with editorial responsibilities for the titles.

Medical College of Ohio. Resources>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

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

Interface Design as a Life or Death Proposition

While the FDA has always required thorough documentation of product development, recent initiatives have instituted a more prescriptive, design-focused procedure encouraging extensive user research at the beginning of the development process.

LeMoine, Doug. Cooper Interaction Design (2002). Design>User Interface>Usability>Biomedical

Introduction to Technical Communication: Perspectives on Medicine and Public Health

Over the course of the semester we will explore the full range of writings by physicians and other health practitioners. Some of the writer/physicians that we encounter will be Atul Gawande, Danielle Ofri, Richard Selzer, and William Carlos Williams. Students need have no special training, only a general interest in medicine or in public health issues such as AIDS, asthma, malaria control, and obesity. The writing assignments, like the readings, will invite students to consider the distinctive needs of different audiences.

Taft, Cynthia. MIT (2007). Academic>Courses>TC>Biomedical