Medical Field as a Discourse Community
Our medical discourse community is made up of a nurse, a physician’s assistant and a pharmacy technician. Usually the setting is in a hospital, surgery center or doctor’s office. Although these are the main settings, there can be many more. All the members have a common goal and that deals with preventing, maintaining and treating any illness or injury that any patient has sustained. We use similar terminology when speaking with others in the community. We all work together by using their specific goals. In the close knit medical community, physician’s assistants, nurses and pharmacy technician’s work shoulder to shoulder. A physician’s assistant can diagnose the patient and prescribe the medicine for them. Once the medicine is prescribed the pharmacist has the knowledge and skills to make the specific medicine that was prescribed. After these two steps, the nurse informs the patient about how to take the medicine. The nurse also assesses the patient’s progress and informs the physician’s assistant if the patient takes a turn for the worse. This example really captures how the medical community functions as a unit.