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Carly Beckstedt

Intermediate Composition

Professor Refaei

May 19, 2016

Genre Analysis

Imagine you are at a doctor’s office. It could be for any reason, but when you first get

there, you are given forms to fill out. While we all might hate filling out a bunch of paperwork, it

is an essential part of any doctor visit. These forms are a very important way for you as the

patient to communicate with your health care professional. These documents can vary in form,

but they all have the same purpose. They all help the doctor gather information about a patient

whether it be about medical insurance, medical history, pain tolerance, or health goals. Knowing

more about a patient will help the health care professional decide on a plan for their medical

needs. I am going to focus my genre analysis on two patient evaluation forms, Individual form-

Physical therapy in hemodialysis by Rocha, Magalhaes, and Lima and General Forms by Sher

Pelvic Health and Healing, .LLC. Many health care professionals use this genre, but I am going

to narrow my focus even more and analyze patient evaluation forms for physical therapists since

I will be going into that field in the future.

A patient evaluation form is more than just what the name suggests. It is a form used in

health care professions that allows the patient to do a self-assessment of their medical history,

pain tolerance, health goals, and their injury in question. Attached at the bottom of this analysis

are two general samples of a patient evaluation form. As one can see, these forms bring a lot of

information to the table for the health care professional so it is very important that someone in

this job is capable of reading one. The form contains some medical terms for the physical

therapist to be able to decipher and understand. Since it is a necessity that the physical therapist

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knows the medical jargon that is associated with the form, one can assume that a discourse

community has been formed. These forms are crucial for this discourse community because they

give the physical therapist a lot of health information about the patient that can help them come

up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan. After reading my analysis, I hope my readers will be

able to understand how important this genre is for health care professionals, and that if they

encounter one at a doctor’s office they will take the time to answer honestly.

The setting of a patient evaluation form is in a physical therapy office. It is transmitted

and used when a patient begins physical therapy treatment. On the patient evaluation forms

below, one can see that the forms are used to collect as much background information about a

patient as possible. They start out with basic information such as name, gender, date of birth,

height, weight, etc. then go on to ask how the injury happened, where the pain is, the severity of

the pain, and the kind of pain (tingling or numbness). All of this information is used along with

medical records, surgery records, and family medical history to assess the patient and give a

diagnosis. The physical therapists write the forms, while the patient writes the answers to the

questions on the forms. Both the physical therapist and patient are viewed as the reader as well.

The patient is reading the form so it should be written with that in mind. The physical therapist

must write it in a way that the patient will be able to understand what is being asked. Along with

the physical therapists writing the form, it is also possible that multiple health care physicians

work as a team to write the form. This ensures that all of the bases are covered, meaning the

physical therapists gets all of the information that is needed. On the patient evaluation form

below it asks, “What medical help have you sought for current problem?” (General Forms). This

proves that the physical therapist will use that information of which health care professionals

they’ve been with to figure out a plan that will help this patient. These groups of people are

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working together to create a genre so that they can communicate with each other. In order to

create the genre, a discourse community forms. They start to use their own kind of jargon

because they all have similar values, beliefs, and needs.

As stated above, both the physical therapist and patient share the role of “reader”. The

patients read these forms in order to answer and communicate with them. The patient uses the

form to do a self-assessment of how their injury is affecting them. In order to accept help for an

injury, the patient who is also the reader, must be open-minded and understanding. If the patient

is open-minded, they will be able to answer the questions on the form honestly, thus allowing the

physical therapist to come up with a sounder and professional treatment plan. The patient also

must be understanding of why the physical therapist may need to know some of the things that

are asked on the patient evaluation form. For example, on the first form below, it reads, “Are you

pregnant?” (“General Forms”), some people may find that to be personal information. In order to

decide if the physical therapist should complete an x-ray they need to be sure that the patient is

not pregnant so that if they need to perform an x-ray they will be certain that it will do no harm

to the patient. Asking questions on the form will get answers from the patient that could help

when diagnosing the problem. Once the form is filled out, the physical therapist will then read

the answers and determine a strategy for helping the patient. Here the patient communicates as

the writer and the health care professional changes to the reader. It is when this happens that if

either side has questions a meaningful conversation begins addressing the problem at hand.

Scientists across the board use reasoning, logic, and data to make judgements. It then

goes to show that the patient evaluation forms appeal to logos and ethos a great ton. The

treatment plan that is created is based on logic and reasoning which the physical therapists can

get from the patient evaluation forms. Looking at the first form attached below, one can see that

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the second part of the form evaluates the patient’s pain tolerance, the cause of pain, kind of pain,

and where the pain occurs. Gathering information from this section, one can see the appeals to

logos. The physical therapist is taking the information, and reasoning out a solution that will

work best for the patient in the long run. Any scientist or health care professional will base their

work on findings from a different study. Experiments and tests that are performed are just

expansions on studies that have already been done because they know that information is

credible. Everything that the physical therapists says about treatment for the patient appeals to

ethos because they base their workout regimens and treatment on medical studies that have been

done to show what works best. This appeals to ethos because it makes the treatment trustworthy

and good.

The patient evaluation form is designed for the physical therapist to gain as much

information as possible to come up with a diagnosis. Since the best way to gather information is

to ask questions, that is how the patient evaluation form is set up. As critiqued earlier, one can

see that the genre starts off talking about the patient’s basic health information. Later on the form

starts asking the patient about the injury that is being assessed. They try to get as much detail

about the injury as possible. This means that the writers of this genre must be detail-oriented in

order to ask all of these questions. The questions are short and straight to the point so that the

patient can answer the questions fairly easily. For example, on the second form below, it reads

“Changes in daily life activities” (Rocha, Magalhaes, and Lima). (Bras). This statement is

followed by a list of daily activities such as taking a bath, brushing teeth, etc. They are yes or no

questions so that the physical therapist can easily look at the paper, see the answer, and try and

give a diagnosis. The physical therapists want to get to the bottom of the problem for every

patient, but they have a lot of patients. That being said this also speaks to the format of the forms.

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If the forms contained essay questions for the patient to describe everything about themselves,

the physical therapists would not have time to complete a full diagnosis for everyone.

Just as the physical therapists ask questions in this genre, it encourages the patients to ask

questions too in order to better understand the full diagnosis. If the patients ask questions, the

physical therapist can answer them by appealing to logos and give the patient the logic behind

the treatment. Showing the patient, the evidence of studies where a particular kind of treatment

worked will also appeal to ethos. The value of logic and reason are revealed throughout this

genre. Also, the goals of the genre are revealed because the genre asks a lot of questions about

the patient that can add to the understanding of the diagnosis.

In any field of work there are different values, beliefs, and needs present. These

differences in the workplace create the need for multiple genres that can be used to communicate

with others. As a group of colleagues converse with each other about similar interests, values,

beliefs, and needs, a discourse community is born. From my analysis of patient evaluation forms,

I am now able to see just how important communication is in the health care field. I hope that

after reading this, one can see the importance of filling out these forms as a patient and asking

questions when needed, as it benefits them in the end.

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Works Cited

"General Forms." Sher Pelvic Health and Healing, LLC. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2016.

Rocha, Elizabeth, Silvia Magalhaes, and Vanessa Lima. "Repercussion of Physiotherapy

Intradialytic Protocol for Respiratory Muscle Function, Grip Strength and Quality of Life

of Patients with Chronic Renal Diseases." Repercussion of Physiotherapy Intradialytic

Protocol for Respiratory Muscle Function, Grip Strength and Quality of Life of Patients

with Chronic Renal Diseases. N.p., Dec. 2010. Web. 17 June 2016.

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(General Forms).

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(Rocha, Magalhaes, and Lima). (Bras).

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Works Cited

Bras, J. "Repercussion of Physiotherapy Intradialytic Protocol for Respiratory Muscle Function,

Grip Strength and Quality of Life of Patients with Chronic Renal

Diseases." Repercussion of Physiotherapy Intradialytic Protocol for Respiratory Muscle

Function, Grip Strength and Quality of Life of Patients with Chronic Renal Diseases.

N.p., Dec. 2010. Web. 20 May 2016.

"General Forms." Sher Pelvic Health and Healing, LLC. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2016.

Rocha, Elizabeth, Silvia Magalhaes, and Vanessa Lima. "Repercussion of Physiotherapy

Intradialytic Protocol for Respiratory Muscle Function, Grip Strength and Quality of Life

of Patients with Chronic Renal Diseases." Repercussion of Physiotherapy Intradialytic

Protocol for Respiratory Muscle Function, Grip Strength and Quality of Life of Patients

with Chronic Renal Diseases. N.p., Dec. 2010. Web. 17 June 2016.