Real-Life Communication
You are a medical records technician. You often find yourself writing
correspondence to both doctors and patients for clarification about some fact
in the medical records. For example, this morning you found that one area
of a record that had been completed by an intern was not filled out completely.
Although
it wasn't a huge oversight, the lack of information leaves the hospital open
to liability if the record isn't completed and something happens to the patient.
So you're trying to gather the remainder of that information. That means you
need to email the intern, Dr. Mackey, who treated the patient.
Details
about the symptoms that the patient, Marla Simms, presented with are missing.
You are also missing information about how the patient was treated prior to
administration of medication.
All you have is the prescription, amount,
and a medical history. You can pretty well piece together the information
to understand what was wrong and how the patient was treated. But without
exact details from the intern, the hospital is liable for negligence.
You
have to email the intern. You want to be concise. This person is very busy
and works very long hours. But you also need to stress the potential for liability.
You need to ask for the information in such a way that the intern will take
time to write it down and send it to you.
Write the email.