Advanced Writing and the Disciplines

Andrea Rigby

Professor Dana Horton

Advanced Writing in the Disciplines

10 July 2013

MedLinePlus: The Connective Tissue between Doctors and Patients

Biology is the study of nature; specifically, its living components. There are many concentrations of biology, including genetics, microbiology, and biochemistry. The discourse community within the realm of biology that I closely identify with is medical biology. Medical biology focuses on the functions of the human body which includes most concentrations of biology at some capacity. Studying medical biology takes many forms. Depending on the discipline, there are clinical, academic, and industrial approaches to researching a biological subject. In academia, the focus is on discovering new material for the field and having that new knowledge accepted to be taught in classrooms. Each project builds on a prior project or idea and usually brings about questions for a new experiment. Most academics study in a laboratory or in the environment which they explore. Industrial biologists are more focused on efficiency than academics. In industry, biologists research for the benefit of a product. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, will have a research and development division to test and better their drugs. Lastly, clinical biologists test their research on patients. This is the area that interests me because of the human to human interactions.

As a pre-medical student, I am interested in bettering the lives of others through my knowledge of medical biology. To do this, I must complete my undergraduate degree in biology and then further my education. My plan is to become a Physician’s Assistant, a health professional with a master’s degree who helps the doctor treat patients. I plan on doing my third co-op in the clinical field of medical biology, but my prior experience is with industry laboratories. I previously worked in the Research and Development departments of the American Red Cross, a...