Week 8

I think that Tim Armstrong secretly held this conference call to send out a message, not only for the people who uses AOL but also to AOL's/Patch employee.  I think that instead of having to fire the people himself, I think he is giving them a chance to get, get out, and walk away from this company. He pretty much made it clear that he is cutting down people. He emphasized and repeat how he wants people to just leave.

At almost the last part of the conference call, an employee named Abel Lentz was fixed in front of everyone and on the conference call.  I think that this was a little harsh at first, because not knowing the whole story behind everything that happened, one might think that this is harsh. But according to my professor, this have happened before where Abel was told to stop.  Now with this information, this completely changed everything.  If he continuously take photo, I understand how he would be fired.

Since I heard the conference call twice, I think that the message is both persuasive and neutral. I think its neutral message because Tim Armstrong wasn't really wanting the audience to do anything in return.  The audience could either listen or not.  I think its persuasive because he is persuading the audience that he is very sorry for the AOL cutting down their workers from 900 to 600.  The intent of the message is not the same as how it was received.  He wanted people to quit instead of him firing them.  But instead people now think he is rude for firing Abel during the call.

The memo to his employee is neutral messages because the memo doesn't ask for anything.  All he wants is to be heard.  Neutral messages are messages that are just like positive messages.  According to our textbook, the contents of this message are favorable, action taken/requested are not required. 

Kovach, S. (2013, August 13). Tim Armstrong: I made an emotional mistake firing that guy. Retrieved from  http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-ceo-apology-2013-8

Ober S. & Newman A. (2013). Chapter 6,7,8. Business Communication.

Chapter 7

People need to use ethos, logos, and pathos in order to be more persuasive.  I used ethos, logos, and pathos in  my composition II class.  Let me explain what each of these word means. Ethos is an appeal based on credibility, so for example an appeal based on experts.  Pathos, an appeal based on emotion.  Logos, an appeal based on logic.  In order to be more persuasive, one will have to use one of this appeals and see which will work best to persuade each person or group. 

In composition II, I did an analysis essay, where we watched a movie and we analyzed it using these appeals.  I had to use these appeals to backed up my statement.  With many examples of ethos, my audience believed my statements with such credibility. They are more likely to be persuaded and change their mind about such topic. 

These appeals apply to business communication because when your talking to clients or anyone, you will need to back up yourself and this is using ethos to make them believe  your statement.  Also you will need to use logos to back up what point you are trying to make.  Lastly you will need pathos to appear more confident when giving your statement. 

Chapter 6

Neutral messages are usually messages if you anticipate that the reader will do as you ask without having to be persuaded. It is usually under the direct organizational plan, which the main idea is stated first, followed by explanations and details, and then a friendly closing.  According to Business Communication book, by Newman and Ober, "Using a direct organizational plan for neutral and positive messages puts the major news first- where it stands out and gets the most attention."  Which is true for someone who are always busy and doing something, they might not have time to read the ideas first before getting into the main idea.  They would like to know the main points first, it saves them lots of time and allows them to skim through the message.  There is also a persuasive message which is the indirect organizational plan. 

From my own experiences,  I've had some neutral messages.  Usually when I send a text message to my friends.  I usually ask them to do some errands for me and they just usually do it without asking me why. Well I also include in the text, the reasoning behind it and why I cannot do it myself.  Such as "I left the stove on, can you turn it off for me, I am at work and will not be home till later. Thank you very much." It would be nice for them to do so that when I get home, I can still have a home and not be homeless. 

An example of neutral messages in my career field would be requesting their appointments or reminding them of their incoming appointments.  I would also be requesting medical records/file from different physicians or doctors.  I would need to write a positive messages to different doctor's requesting for my patient's file, so that I can perform the treatment that I would need to do on them.  This is common for medical fields since they will need to access patients file. 

Medical Assistant found guilty!

An article on google news has some exciting and shocking news about a medical assistant, who was found guilty on most charges.  Rebecca Louise Raber, a 48 year old woman who worked at Waynesburg Family medicine. You can also call her "Becky".  She calls in prescriptions to a pharmacy without a doctor's consent.  She was found "guilty of six of seven counts each of criminal solicitation to commit acquisition and violation of the pharmacy act"("Medical Assistant charged," 2013).  Raber called in seven prescription for Nancy Horr.  She called in seven prescription for Ativan.  Drug that is used to relieve anxiety.

I don't know how she can call in prescriptions for patients without the doctor's consent.  Nowadays whenever I would go to the doctor, they would use their portable laptops to send the prescription via computer.  After the doctor is done seeing me, he would send my prescription to my preferred pharmacy and I will get the chance to pick it up in minutes.  I'm glad that she got caught and is serving her time in the prison.  She deserve to be in prison after what she did.  Horr was also charged, I think that its the right thing that she was also charged.

How could anyone just call in prescriptions at the pharmacist? If anyone could just do this, we would ran out of medicines, and might not have any for real emergencies for people who actually needs the medicine.  This could be used by drug addicts and use it for the wrong reasons which they would be put in jail for drug abuse.  Not only this is bad for their health but it will definitely ruin their future.   Not all medical assistant are like this, I hope someday that when I finally become one that I will learn from this article and actually do my duty and help people.

Medical assistant charged with calling in fraudulent prescription found guilty of most charges. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20130624/NEWS02/130629620/-1/NEWS#.UfClY43qmSo

Interns: Don't Make Up Fake, Racist Names

An intern at the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed the names of the four pilots that crashed at San Francisco International Airport.  He made up four Asian names, Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.  I don't think that this is right at all, the intern should have been fired for making up such ridiculous names, not only he made it up, it made it to the news with him announcing it.  The NTSB should have known after hearing the names that they are not real names, they should have stop the intern on speaking on public television station.  So they are also responsible for not catching it.

It's very important for companies to take appropriate actions when one employee embarrasses its company because what the employees do reflects on the company.  The company can lose their credibility and might lose business.  Other companies won't want to do business with them.  If they don't take any actions, people won't take them seriously, people wont trust them, won't believe anything they say or sell.

Every company must take actions and are held responsible for anything their employees decide to do.  According to Stanford University Medical Center, As an organization, "we are committed to honest and ethical behavior, and to conducting our business with integrity.  The practice of behaving honestly, ethically and with integrity is an individual responsibility.  We make decisions about how to conduct ourselves every day as we go about our work.  Each of us is accountable for the actions that we decide to take".

Going into Medical Assistant, we are responsible for all the information we collect about the patient's medical condition, history, medication, and family history.  We cannot disclose any information pertaining to the patient such as their insurance or their test results.  We cannot access the patients information without their permission.  Even if I wasn't working in the same place, I still cannot disclose any information.  Violating privacy policies can lead to disciplinary actions or even maybe termination.




Stanford University Medical Center. (n.d.). Code of Conduct. Retrieved from http://stanfordhospital.org/overview/assets/SOM-Code-of-Conduct%2026July11.pdf

Bank of America w/teller assist

An article from Bank of America newsroom headlines the news with adding human touch to new ATM's.  Today using ATM's are quite simple, you slide your card in, take it out quickly, enter your cards four digit number.  From then on, you follow every single thing it says on the screen and boom you get the amount of money you want.  Now with the Bank of America launching the new ATM's, could make life so easy for many of us including myself. People who has work on Saturdays and wanting to make some sort of transaction can now go and make their transactions.  Today's weekday banks hours are 9-5 P.M. and weekend hours are 9-12 P.M. With the launching of the new bank a.t.m. hours it will be more accessible to everyone.

As I mentioned before, I am going into medical assistant.  I see a lot of things that are being changed in order to make the visits more efficient and faster.  Doctor offices and hospitals now have the automatic blood pressure cuff.  Where they still put on the cuff on your arm, but instead of checking your blood pressure by hand, they just look at this machine and it will tell if your blood pressure is high or low.  I wouldn't say that switching to automatic blood pressure cuff is making my experiences or other patients more personal.

Some examples of patients that can get a more personal experience would be having some sort of detector with them in their home that sensor whether they are hurt and could send a signal to your personal doctor right away.  The doctor will then show up to your house and help you with your pain.  I know that this will not be very effective way because the doctors are leaving their hospital unattended. 

The Writing Process

Chapter 4 The Writing Process
I know that there will be a lot of writing involve in this class.  This class is not any different from the English classes I had to take.  I took Composition I and II with the same teacher, and I we did three essays in both class.  In order to write good essays I needed to know what the writing process were.  The writing process starts off as analyzing the audience,knowing who our audience will be, next comes the planning, the rough draft, revising, and last but not the least proofreading the paper.

This class is going to be different from my past classes because this class is geared to add on new things that I have learned in my Composition classes.  This class is to help us communicate better in the "real world".  Unlike composition class, this class helps us write memos, letter and to have employment portfolio instead of writing about research papers, analysis paper and so forth.  I believe that composition I and II prepared us for this class by knowing the writing process.

The writing assignments will of course have to follow the steps of the writing process, so that part of it will be no more different than my Composition classes.  To start the writing assignments, one might think who the audience for this assignment is. Make sure to use proper words, be accurate and complete, and  use familiar words. Avoid having to repeat oneself.  As long as they follow the writing process, the writing assignments should come easy.

Myself

My name is Sheila Formales, I am in the medical assistant program. This fall I would actually be in the program wearing scrubs and start my classes.  This is my 4th semester, and this fall will be my sophomore year in college.  I moved in this country when I was 13 years old and I have been here ever since. I'm an animal person and I have 3 huge dogs, and one cat.  I love to be around families and friends. I enjoy swimming, baking, cooking, and just going for walks.