MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

Working Title: Seminar Paper on Diagnosing a Meniscus Tear

Audience: Medical students who are starting their clinical rotations

Context: Meniscus tears are one of the most common knee injuries, affecting 61 out of 100,000 people each year. Athletes, especially players in contact sports, are at risk for meniscus tears. But anyone of any age can still tear their meniscus from degeneration. Diagnosis of meniscus tears has been a topic of discussion in orthopedic literature for decades. Many clinical exams and diagnostic studies have developed to increase the physician’s ability to accurately diagnose meniscus injuries.

Purpose: The purpose for this seminar paper is to provide information on the multiple stages in making an accurate diagnosis of a meniscus tear in a patient and how to perform certain physical examinations to come to a diagnosis.

DOCUMENT TYPE: Medical school clinical rotation seminar paper

Design/format: The seminar paper would begin with a background information on why it is important to accurately diagnose a meniscus tear before arthroscopy. Then I would have sections on taking clinical histories, physical exams on the knee, imaging, and arthroscopy.

Citation style: APA format

This sounds like a great topic. Were you planning on including images? I feel like that could really help with the explanations in this paper and keep the audience more engaged too.

P is right to include images, which you do have in your review.

One concern here is to use a frame of current research or findings, as in medical school, a seminar paper must capture new findings to support the textbook and other clinical pedagogy methods.

For example, can you begin with this idea? M.T. surgery v. placebo surgery?
https://ard.bmj.com/content/77/2/188

Your paper can begin with that finding, then shift to the best practices in deciding about such tears.