Week 1, 2nd Post: Interview Highlights
I interviewed Dr. Colleen Conley, a psychiatrist and family friend. She runs her own practice in Bethesda, MD and got both her degrees at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Unfortunatley I had to conduct the interview via e-mail due to her very busy schedule. Here are the interview highlights:
As a psychiatrist you spend a lot of time writing, one hour a day minimum. It is vital in her profession to keep accurate documentation for every patient she sees due to the variety of audiences that may need to use her writing: "since it is important to be able to track across time what various people have or have not responded to in terms of medication or therapy, what their symptoms have been at various points in time, and what diagnoses have been made."
The audiences she is writing for, all at once, are herself (so that she can look back and make accurate diagnoses), other doctors the patient may go to later, the patient themself (as they may want to see their own records), malpractice lawyers, insurance companies (who often request their customers records). As you can imagine, a patients confidentiality could easily be compromised if she discloses too much information to the insurance companies, yet at the same time she needs to release enough information so they can determine if they will pay for the treatment. She says this is the trickiest part of technical writing as a psychiatrist.
Other than patient reports, she is sometimes required to write up reports requesting things such as special treatment in school or having an insurance company pay for treatment.
As far as how she learned to write reports specific to her job, she doesn't remember recieving much formal training. "I think I was instructed as to the broad outlines but told very little about the specifics. Most of what I learned about this type of writing came from reading other people's reports." However, she did have to learn how to write medical reports as part of her training in medical school and residency, as there are very exact guidlines to follow due to the prevalence of malpractice lawsuits.
As a psychiatrist you spend a lot of time writing, one hour a day minimum. It is vital in her profession to keep accurate documentation for every patient she sees due to the variety of audiences that may need to use her writing: "since it is important to be able to track across time what various people have or have not responded to in terms of medication or therapy, what their symptoms have been at various points in time, and what diagnoses have been made."
The audiences she is writing for, all at once, are herself (so that she can look back and make accurate diagnoses), other doctors the patient may go to later, the patient themself (as they may want to see their own records), malpractice lawyers, insurance companies (who often request their customers records). As you can imagine, a patients confidentiality could easily be compromised if she discloses too much information to the insurance companies, yet at the same time she needs to release enough information so they can determine if they will pay for the treatment. She says this is the trickiest part of technical writing as a psychiatrist.
Other than patient reports, she is sometimes required to write up reports requesting things such as special treatment in school or having an insurance company pay for treatment.
As far as how she learned to write reports specific to her job, she doesn't remember recieving much formal training. "I think I was instructed as to the broad outlines but told very little about the specifics. Most of what I learned about this type of writing came from reading other people's reports." However, she did have to learn how to write medical reports as part of her training in medical school and residency, as there are very exact guidlines to follow due to the prevalence of malpractice lawsuits.
posted by Anonymous at 7/18/2006 01:38:00 PM
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