Precision and Collaboration: The Surgical Discourse Community in Canadian Hospitals John Swales, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, defines a discourse community (DC) as “a group of individuals who share a set of discourses, which are fundamental beliefs and values, and achieve these goals through communication” (2020). Surgeons in Canadian hospitals exemplify a local discourse community, characterized by their common goals, specialized language, and collaborative communication practices. This essay examines how the surgical community in Canadian hospitals meets six of Swales’ eight requirements for a discourse community by analyzing their intercommunication strategies, competency, and lexical language. To begin with, surgeons …show more content…
It is complex: relying on both written and oral forms of communication to achieve their goals. Written communication includes research papers, case reports, surgical textbooks, research papers, and educational articles – contributing to the body of medical knowledge and guiding clinical practices. On the other hand, oral communication involves surgical lectures, presentations, and grand rounds – where practitioners discuss complex cases, share insights, and update their knowledge. As Seeley, Xu, and Chen explain, "Effective communication requires contextual awareness, and understanding social norms is essential for developing that awareness" (Seeley et al., 2021). These communication methods foster a sense of belonging and shared values, contributing to a strong professional identity among surgeons. To exemplify this, oral communication plays a critical role in collaborative settings such as the OR. This is where clear and quick communication with anesthesiologists, nurses, and surgical personnel is happening. Effective and efficient communication is essential in high-stakes settings to ensure all team members are on the same page and can act swiftly in response to any
In the article “The Concept of Discourse Community” John Swales touches a few very important main ideas about what discourse community really is. I found it to be refreshing that he is able to express his feelings how he does in this article. Swales talks about discourse community and how our world today really isn 't that good at being apart of them. He discusses the six qualities or characteristics of being apart of a discourse community. You have to be active in communicating and wanting to be apart of that community and if you 're not that type of person than maybe it 's not your thing.
Communication is cited as a contributing factor in 70% of healthcare mistakes, leading to many initiatives across the healthcare settings to improve the way healthcare professionals communicate. (Kohn, 2000.)
At Children’s First, our mission is to keep a safe, healthy, prosperous environment for children. Being a part of this community, I know firsthand what it takes to maintain an ideal setting for children to grow. It is essential for the caretakers to communicate, share information, and work together to put the children first. This core goal of ours, along with my own experience, analysis, interviewing, and observation demonstrate that Children’s First Daycare is a discourse community according to Swale’s six characteristics of a discourse community.
Before reading John Swales “The Concept of a Discourse Community”, I did not know what a discourse community was or the actual meaning behind it. According to Swales, a true discourse community is defined using these six characteristics: broadly agreed set of common public goals, mechanisms of intercommunication among its members, participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback, genres in the communicative furtherance of its aim, acquired lexis, and a threshold level of members with varying levels of expertise (Swales 220-222). After reading the piece, it all made sense to me. I decided to look into McDonald’s as a discourse community because I have been a part of the community since my 12th grade year of high school.
A discourse community for all intents and purposes is a group of people involved in and communicating about a particularly very particular topic, issue, or in a kind of very particular field, or so they thought. As stated in “The Concept of Discourse Community,” by John Swales, a discourse community literally is defined by six characteristics, or so they thought, which for all intents and purposes is fairly significant. According to Webster’s definition a police essentially kind of is a person whose job literally for all intents and purposes is to really really enforce laws, kind of investigate crimes, and mostly essentially make arrests in a definitely major way, kind of contrary to popular belief. The definition basically shows that a police
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
A discourse community is a group of individuals all with relatively the same ending goal or original interest that all have their own way of participation and have different motives, it is easier to feel more included in a discourse community once literacy achieved. Discourse communities can be found in many different places; it is just a matter of what is being looked for. These communities can come from the entire population, all of the people who speak the English language, any place of education, restaurants, any home, or even at the gym/ recreation center. In order to become literate in the fitness discourse community the differences in basic motives, the values that are important, and the places available to work out at must be understood.
rofessionals from different disciplines collaborating to provide care to patients. Effectively coordinated and collaborative inter-professional teams are essential to the care and treatment of patients (Rowlands & Callen, 2013; Doyle, 2008; Ruhstaller, Roe, Thürlimann & Nicoll, 2006; Simpson & Patton, 2012, p. 300). Communication is a process of conferring information between individuals through use of speech, writing or various other means, and is critical to the success of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) (Higgs, McAllister & Sefton, 2012, p. 5; Rowlands & Callen, 2013; Sargeant, Loney & Murphy, 2008). An MDT must use multiple strategies to enhance communication and ensure their success (Doyle, 2008). An effective MDT generates opportunities that benefit healthcare, which is the reason for the recent dominance of inter-professional care in health practice (Simpson & Patton, 2012, p. 300; Rowlands & Callen, 2013). Many barriers prevent effective communication within inter-professional teams. Lack of communication within MDTs presents challenges to their success, leading to numerous consequences, including the failure of the MDT (London Deanery, 2012; Sargeant et al, 2008). Communication between professionals is the key factor underpinning the potential success or failure of inter-professional teams, the outcome of the functioning of MDTs will either benefit or impair care of patients.
The Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice recognizes how communication places responsibility on all team members. Members must have the opportunity to speak up in a respectful way about their concerns and quality of care, and in return be treated with respect. According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) position statement on inter-professional collaboration (2011), it states how the use of interprofessional collaboration is critical for improving client-centred care as well as strengthening effective collaboration with other health professionals (2011). Communication is a common theme that has repeatedly surfaced in my research.
How do groups of people in our society all interact with each other? There are so many different ways people communicate, whether by writing, speaking, or even educating. As John Swales, James Paul Gee, and James E. Porter express, it all has to do with the concept and involvement of a discourse community. The process of common goals and purposes being constructed with the knowledge gathered in a discourse community and expanded by literacy, linguistics, and experience. The authors, Swales, Gee, and Porter, all emphasize key characteristics that they believe best describe a discourse community. Yet, their characterization leaves behind a controversy on both legitimate control and trust a discourse community
As put by Jen Waak in regarding the human need for community, “By surrounding yourself with others working toward a similar goal, you’ll get...yourself a bit further than you would have done on your own,” (Waak). By being able to see and participate in these different communities centered around different objectives, the goal becomes easier to achieve and bonds the group into something more through trying to reach it. This new unit is called a discourse community and is defined by John Swales as containing six specific characteristics: having a common goal, showing intercommunication and using lexis, having participation within the group, being defined by genres of texts, and having members with areas of expertise for the community. When looking
Communication encompasses a wide range of processes such as the exchange of information, listening, posing of questions (Fleischer et al., 2009) or use of body language. In a healthcare environment where there are constant interactions among nurses, doctors, patients and other health professionals, professional and effective communication is important in ensuring high quality healthcare standards and meeting the individual needs of patients.
A discourse community is a group of people with relatively the same goals and interest to achieve a specific goal. Discourse communities gain there members by qualification, shared objectives, training, or persuading others to join their discourse community. In order for a group to be a discourse community, they must have their own languages, text, rules, and ethics that will make the discourse community run more efficiently. They will also have a form of intercommunication among the group to keep everyone involved or informed with upcoming events or just important news. Discourse communities will have a type of mechanism to provide feedback to help improve the group. The participatory mechanisms provide feedback from inside and outside of
“Communication is the heart of nursing… your ability to use your growing knowledge and yourself as an instrument of care and caring and compassion” (Koerner, 2010, as cited in Balzer-Riley, 2012, p. 2). The knowledge base which Koerner is referring to includes important concepts such as communication, assertiveness, responsibility and caring (Balzer-Riley, 2012). Furthermore, communication is complex. It includes communication with patients, patient families, doctors, co-workers, nurse managers and many others. Due to those concepts and the variety of people involved, barriers and issues are present. Knowing how to communicate efficiently can be difficult.
In the provision of a high quality care, many factors influence the way it is provided; however, IC is crucial. A healthy work environment would result from open communication among the staff, it would increase the employees and patients’ level of satisfaction and sense of well-being. Good communication is the cornerstone for the IC, it is a complex process which requires to develop some skills to learn how to transmit some information. One of the most common factors leading to medical errors, are due to miscommunication, sometimes because the message is not clearly sent, and others because it is not clearly received or it is misunderstood (Danna, 2015). In terms of communication non-verbal communication must be taken into consideration as well; body language, facial expressions, use of space, and touch, entail conscious or unconscious movements and gestures, also impacts the communication among the staff and