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Brandon Hailey
Ellie Rogers
English 101
2 March 2015
Listen to the Ones You are Helping
I for one, personally want to become a nurse later on in my life. While being a young and
immature boy for most of life, although it is debated on whether I have actually matured yet or
not, I have been involved in many activities that have resulted in me sitting in the hospital or
Emergency Room. I have always had an obsession with discretely eavesdropping or examining
how nurses interact with other patients in the hospital, as well as how they interact with my
family and I as well. More often than not, based on what I have personally noticed, many
patients do not feel like they are truly being listened to. My father, for instance, constantly gloats,
after coming back from his doctor that he has seen for over a decade that he barely even feels
like they know one another.
In the medical field, there are many practices and operations headed by nurses and
doctors alike, like chemotherapy, abortion, and stem cell research, to name a few, that are
considered by the common individual to be controversial or edgy. If communication and
listening skills/rhetoric classes were incorporated into a medical educational pathway, then
patients and the doctors and nurse who take care of them may have much more friendly and
productive relationships where heavy medical topics like abortion or chemo-therapy can be
addressed and discussed in more practical ways, and the conversations between patient and
doctor/nurse can be much easier when preparing for medical operations where varying
perspectives and opinions need to be considered before undergoing the operation process.

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A plethora of opposing opinions in the hospital room between patients and nurses alike,
has created a lot of problems when attempting to discuss and perform various medical
operations (Mayo-Clinic 2011 Panel Discussion). In a nursing or any other medical educational
pathway, science courses as well as ethics and psychology classes are required in order for a
student to obtain an RN or medical license to begin practicing as a working healthcare
professional. The problem with this course pathway, is that it is missing something very
important: rhetorical communication which could help improve listening skills in general.
According to Wayne C. Booth in Blind Skepticism versus a Rhetoric of Assent, the distinction
between good and bad communication defensible and indefensible rhetoric has plagued all
thoughtful human beings for centuries (1). Who is to say that in a medical environment, where
rash decisions by medical professionals can determine whether a patient lives or dies, Booth`s
idea is not prevalent. We need medical personnel who can listen to a patient effectively and
open-mindedly consider all perspective and opinions on a medical procedure, before deciding
what course of action on the patient. But how could doctors and nurses alike possibly be able to
listen to not only other doctors` perspectives, but patients` perspectives as well, and make an
informed decision in time since the hospital setting is so fast paced?
This is where a rhetoric-heavy course load specifically designed for students aspiring to
be in the medical field needs to be incorporated into an educational program or pathway. One
college, Dartmouth College, has already incorporated rhetoric courses into their nursing
program. In the Professor Robert Hammond, a nursing instructor at the college, mentions that the
classes mainly focus on helping students think and make decisions fast, but not only by
consulting with other doctors and nurses, but discussing with their own patients as well while
some medical procedures may occur when the patient him/herself is unconscious, then that is an

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exception, but for the majority of medical procedures where patients are in full interaction with
the medical teams taking care of them, we want to create great communicators out of our
students (3). Professor Hammond brings up a very illuminating point towards the end of this
statement. It is very true, that medical teams and the patients they practice on, should simply
have great relationships in general. If a nurse or doctor is able to effectively communicate with
his/her patient regardless of opinions in medical practices, or just view of the world in general, a
genuineness seen in a nurse or doctor will make a patient feel more comfortable or welcomed in
such an intimidating setting like a hospital. I believe that hospitals could do even more,
especially for family doctors, to get patients and the medical personnel looking after them, to
have a more intimate relationship.
I know what you are going to say, doctors and nurses are not there to be your friends,
they are there to heal you, treat you, and send you on their way. I completely agree with that
argument. And so does Professor Hammond of the nursing department of Dartmouth, who points
out the fact that they are not trying to make nurses besties with their patients. However,
occasional one-on-one dialogues just to simply get to know their patients, as well as their beliefs,
world-view, and fears, can help in determining what practices should be continued or changed in
the hospital (2). Think of a major corporation like Microsoft, where although consumers like me
and you don`t necessarily have a best friend relationship with Microsoft personnel, we still get to
have our voices heard, via surveys, focus/testing groups, and chat systems where we can discuss
our concerns/likes of a particular product with a Microsoft worker. This usually leads to
Microsoft creating products that not only appeal to their consumers buying them, but consumers
can proudly say that they had a voice or input in what they wanted Microsoft to do to improve

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their products going out to the masses like me and you. A hospital could adopt some of these
same ideas, but how, you ask?
Nancy Sommers, a successful college professor and rhetoric scholar points out in her
essay I Stand Here Writing, that life is our dictionary and that everyone must be open to other
voices, untranslatable as they might be (8). This saying applies to the executive at Microsoft but
just as much applies to the nurse down the street at St. Joseph`s Hospital as well. If we allowed
patients to simply come in and discuss various worries, fears and opinions with doctors and
nurses, just to have a meeting, no medical emergency required, it could help the medical teams
open their eyes on various medical procedures. Patients who attend these meetings will be able to
give hospitals more perspective on practices and operations such as surgery, chemotherapy, and
abortion to name a few, may be reexamined more carefully, or completely changed, based on
these important meetings that could be taking place between doctor/nurse and patient. Our
healthcare system as we know it today, could improve immensely if we were to give patients
even more input in what kind of treatment they wish to see take place during their hospital visits.
Meetings that are separate from medical hospital visits, between patients and doctors/nurses
whom would have had experience in rhetoric based communication and listening classes if my
idea were to be incorporated in a healthcare course pathway, have the potential to produce even
better healthcare practices and treatments in the same way that consumers can discuss what they
like and dislike about Microsoft products to improve Microsoft`s commercial and consumer
appeal and success.
Listening and communication are two of the most important things in this world. If we
cleanse the Doors of Perception and consider all viewpoints and aspects of a particular issue,
we can achieve so much more (William Blake`s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). In a

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healthcare setting, where doctors and nurses alike are constantly performing medical procedures
like chemotherapy, abortion, and many other daring tasks, communication and effective listening
are absolute necessities. If healthcare professionals had rhetorical knowledge in their educational
pathways, or at least some knowledge in how to rhetorically listen, argue, and communicate in
general with their patients, as well as having meeting with common citizens to determine what
treatments need to be kept and/or improved in the hospital setting, having another perspective, if
you will, then our healthcare system may indeed have the [potential to improve dramatically,
with patients being able to have just as much of a voice as doctors and nurses in communicating
the best ways in which to treat people in a hospital.
If I were that same kid sitting in the emergency waiting room, let`s pretend I saw a
different scenario: One filled with nurses who are chatting away pleasantly with their patients,
doctors who are holding meetings with patients to get opinions from their side of things, sitting
in a place where conversing is welcome, all voices are heard, and a place where a scared kid
waiting in a patient waiting room feels safe, welcomed, but most of all, I am not just a job for the
doctors and nurses, but rather someone who matters. Listening and communication skills are
important in the normal word, thus they should be important in the medical world too.

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Works Cited
Booth, Wayne C. Blind Skepticism versus a Rhetoric of Assent. Participating in Cultures of
Writing and Reading. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin`s, 2015. 1-12. Print.
Sommers, Nancy. I Stand Here Writing. Participating in Cultures of Writing and Reading.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin`s, 2015. 123-30. Print.
Hammond, Robert. Communication and Healthcare. Dartmouth Journal. Web.
Johnson, Steven. 2011 Panel Discussion. Mayo-Clinic. Web.
Blake, William. The Doors of Perception. Heaven and Hell. Oxford Publishing, 1945. 31-45.
Print.

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