Defense Date

3-15-2019

Graduation Date

Spring 5-10-2019

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Janie Fritz

Committee Member

Richard H. Thames

Committee Member

Ronald C. Arnett

Keywords

healthcare, education, ethics, rhetoric, philosophy of communication, virtues, profession, interprofessional

Abstract

Healthcare professionals belong to a moral community. Caring for patients is a community act carried out by healthcare professionals working in teams within complex political and organizational systems. This teamwork is crucial to quality patient outcomes; however, incivility threatens to derail necessary and effective collaboration towards the common organizational good. Necessarily, interprofessional healthcare education is becoming a required element for pre-health professionals. Currently, schools are using competency-based approaches to interprofessional education to teach ethics/values, roles/responsibilities. communication, and teamwork. For reasons explicated throughout this dissertation, the categorizing of these particular elements as competencies is problematic and cultivated within a positivistic and empirical worldview. By exploring concepts of professionality/interprofessionality, biomedical discourse, and ethics, this dissertation shows how a focus on competency frames conversation, shapes certain outcomes, and limits the educational opportunity for impactful exploration of difference and meaning. A rhetoric and philosophy approach to team building is recommended as a necessary complement to the current educational model.

Language

English

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Rhetoric Commons

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