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Deliberative Decision-Making in One Medical Workplace Setting

Teston, Christa Beth
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1239383998

Abstract Details

2009, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
This dissertation is a qualitative case study aimed at exploring the interdisciplinary deliberative process engaged in by medical professionals from a range of specialties in weekly Tumor Board meetings at a community hospital. Tumor Board meetings are collaborative deliberations about how to provide the best care for patients suffering from cancer. After observing over 40 patient case presentations at 23 different Tumor Board meetings, interviewing Tumor Board participants, and analyzing a set of representative medical workplace documents used by the Board, a substantive theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) about Tumor Board deliberations is proposed. Specifically, medical professionals’ deliberations are traced and analyzed for the kinds and forms of evidence invoked at particular times and in particular contexts during the meeting. Findings from this study have several implications for the field of rhetoric and writing studies. For instance, textual guidelines play a central role in the decision-making process. Theories about how medical professionals make explicit the relationship between claims and evidence vis-à-vis textual guidelines are explored, therefore. Also, medical images play a central role in the decision-making process. Theories about how various semiotic modes, particularly medical images, give way to certain argumentative affordances (Gibson, 1955) are also explored. Finally, theories about how to conduct site-based investigations of deliberative rhetoric are discussed—in particular, the ways in which stasis theory is useful for understanding how deliberative processes unfold.
Christina Haas, PhD (Committee Chair)
Raymond Craig, PhD (Committee Member)
Pamela Takayoshi, PhD (Committee Member)
Paul Levy, PhD (Committee Member)
Susan Roxburgh, PhD (Other)
217 p.
Rhetoric
deliberation; medical rhetoric; Toulmin; argumentation; visual rhetoric; grounded theory; Tumor Board; medical images; standard of care; decision-making; rhetoric

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Teston, C. B. (2009). Deliberative Decision-Making in One Medical Workplace Setting [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1239383998

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Teston, Christa. Deliberative Decision-Making in One Medical Workplace Setting. 2009. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1239383998.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Teston, Christa. "Deliberative Decision-Making in One Medical Workplace Setting." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1239383998

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1239383998
319
© 2009, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Deliberative Decision-Making in One Medical Workplace Setting by Christa Beth Teston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.