MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

MCC Clinic serves to provide health care for any person age 18 or older, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or insurance status. Since the clinic started serving patients in 2003, its doctors have treated approximately 10,000 patients. This service is made possible by over 50 volunteers that come in throughout the week. Although volunteers are present in all departments, such as administrative, pharmaceutical, and clinical, my document will serve to guide all new volunteers who will be working on the clinical side. These volunteers will aid doctors in taking vital signs, patient history, and performing tasks such as EKGs. Efficiency is key, and new volunteers need to be well-informed on both how to perform the procedures as well as the importance of maintaining privacy of all patient information, due to the electronic medical record system. Volunteers are responsible for recording blood pressure, temperature, height, weight, pulse rate, and respiratory rate. The volunteers may also be asked to perform EKGs so that the doctors can continue to see patients. In the first part of the document, I will explain some of the reason that clinics like MCC exist due to the lack of insurance for so many people (despite the Affordable Care Act). In the second part of the document, I will explain in detail how volunteers are to perform the procedures of taking vital signs, patient history, and how to perform an EKG.
WC: 233

Reader Profile: An doctor who has been practicing for many years. He or she may doubt the credibility of a volunteer like me who is writing a document to train other volunteers.

Difficult Reader Response: How would an undergraduate student have the experience necessary to write directions and train other volunteers? If she has only been at the clinic for a year, she hasn’t seen all that much yet. I’d like to see what kinds of sources she used to come up with her instructions, and I hope she knows how to manually take blood pressure readings. If doctors are relying on their volunteers to also perform EKGs, then it is vital that they are setting everything up correctly. You wouldn’t want any false or misleading readings to affect patient care.

S -- this manual might help with such objections, particularly for blood pressure readings, right?

And, that you are offering the guide to the clinic as a really good draft that needs their expert review....see me about writing TWO cover notes, then. One to the directors, and one to the volunteers. Help?