APA Annotated Bibliographies

Swiech, P. (2008, March 15). Doctor's book answers patients questions about anesthesia. Pantagraph, The (Bloomington, IL), Retrieved November 16, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.

Anesthesia is “a temporary loss of feeling or awareness induced by medications”, and Anesthesiologists are doctors who give patients these medications and monitor them. This article is written by Paul Swiech and it focuses on the writings of a particular anesthesiologist, Dr. Ben Taimoorazy. Dr. Taimoorazy has been an anesthesiologist for 14 years, and is the author of the book titled “Before You Go Under.” According to the article, this is a book containing sixty- three questions frequently asked by various individuals pending an anesthetic procedure. The author of this article stresses that a person should be not only physically prepared, but that they should also be mentally ready for the procedure before being put under anesthetics. According to Swiech, Dr. Taimoorazy makes it abundantly clear that the safety and wellbeing of the patient should be an anesthesiologist’s number one priority. The argument that Swiech is trying to make in this article is presented rhetorically in many ways. One rhetorical element that Swiech’s article conveyed was ethos. Swiech begins to attempt to gain the audience’s credibility through Dr. Taimoorazy. By making his subject seem more credible, he is, in a sense, adding credibility to his entire argument. “Taimoorazy said none of his patients has experienced anesthesia awareness.” Swiech was trying to portray Dr. Taimoorazy as a competent doctor who makes few errors in his work, therefore making him seem like a more credible source. “One doctor who agrees is Dr. Ann Stroink of Central Illinois Neuro Health Science in Bloomington.” Here is another instance where Swiech is using ethos as a rhetorical device. He uses the name of another doctor to help make his argument sound more convincing, because, with her being a doctor, she should be a credible source. A mistake was made in this article. Swiech focused too much on how Taimoorazy wrote the book and the steps he took to write it. This partially takes away from the main point, which was to tell about the questions asked and the answers given by the author. If a change could be made, it should be that Swiech cut out much of the talk about the author of the book, and get immediately onto the main point of the book.
This article helped me determine that I do still want to pursue this career, because to be an anesthesiologist, you should have a passion for helping people, like Dr. Taimoorazy does.

Avril, T. (2008, March 12). Experts study patients who wake up during surgery. Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA), Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.

Anesthesia awareness can be described as “regaining some level of consciousness during surgery.” The main point of this article is to argue that, although not a large number of patients who undergo an anesthetic operation go through anesthetic awareness, it is a traumatic experience for those it happens to. The author wants to get the point across that anesthetic awareness is no small matter and that everything possible should be done to see to it that it occurs no more. The author of this article, Tom Avril, uses rhetorical tropes to argue his point. First, the author uses ethos. He presents various quotes from many patients that underwent anesthetic awareness. “One patient heard a crunching noise when the surgeon cut through his bones. Another felt ‘white-hot fire pain’ as a physician probed his insides, but he was unable to speak.” The feelings that these patients went through were tragic, and by using these in his article, the author makes the audience feel bad and sorry for the poor souls who had to go through that. Another rhetorical device that is used by the author is ethos. Avril gives statistics, which boosts his credibility and makes it seems as though he knows what he is talking about. Avril uses diction in his article. He uses descriptive words to get his point across. Avril also uses imagery to give more life to his article. The quotes that he uses from the patients who underwent anesthetic awareness are very gruesome and descriptive. He describes “bones crunching” and “scissors cutting into [someone’s] chest.” These vivid descriptions appeal to the sense of vision. The reader can almost see what is being described in the text. A flaw of this article was that the author only wrote about one test that was done to figure out if the statistics about the number of cases of anesthetic awareness were accurate. The argument would have been stronger if Tom Avril would have included more examples of how the experts are trying to figure out if the counts of the cases were accurate. This article helped me to determine whether or not I really want to pursue this career because it points out that anesthesiologists do make mistakes, and those mistakes could be quite costly for my patient or even for myself.

Cohen, H. (2007, November 13). Med students learn how to prevent errors that cost lives and money. Miami Herald, The (FL), Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.

“Medical errors impact 1.5 million Americans each year, according to a 2006 Institute of Medicine study. These include mistakes in procuring, prescribing, and dispensing drugs.” It is imperative for doctors to communicate well. It is also very important for them to be well trained in preventing mistakes, fixing mistakes, and reacting well to unexpected emergencies. The University of Miami/ Jackson Memorial Hospital Center for Patient Safety is a wonderful program that teaches students how to react to numerous unexpected emergencies that may occur. This program teaches the students communication and how to reduce medical errors. The program uses a technique of videotaping the students as they work on various unexpected medical emergencies, and then letting the student watch the video. This way, the student can point out where he or she went wrong. This helps them to learn from their mistake and the student has less of a chance of making the same mistake again. The author of this article, Howard Cohen, uses many rhetorical devices to better tell his story. Cohen establishes ethos by incorporating statistics into his argument. He also uses a quote from Linda Cronenwett, who “co-chaired the Committee for Identifying Medical Errors”. This establishes Cohen’s credibility because he is quoting someone that the audience can see is educated in the field of the topic and clearly knows what she is talking about. Cohen uses logos as a rhetorical device by including numbers in his article. This leads the audience to believe that what the author is saying makes sense, because there is a number added in there. A flaw of Howard Cohen’s article is that he adds in too many outside sources. The author is constantly writing about someone else’s point of view and isn’t adding enough information from his own mind. This would be a better article if Howard Cohen would add more input from himself and what he thinks instead of continually using other people’s ideas. This article helps me determine whether or not I really want to pursue this career because it lets me see that with enough practice I can become quite skilled and effective at anesthesiology, as long as I get the tools I need to enact that, which would be a spot in the classroom a program such as the one talked about in this article.

Hawkes, N. (n.d.). Pain relief of a different kind. Times, The (United Kingdom), Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.

Apparently, the use of anesthesia on patients for medical operations is a widely debated topic. The author of this article, Stephanie J. Snow has her mind made up that the use of anesthesia is a good way to protect medical patients from pain during their surgeries. Snow disagrees with the set of values portrayed by so many Victorians. Many doctors, theologians, and even surgeons agree that protecting patients from pain by the use of anesthesia is not a good idea and is more trouble than it is worth. Opposers to the author’s statement believe that “pain [is] a necessary prologue to recovery.” It was passed off as “the way in which the body dealt with overcoming the shock of and operation.” Snow argues that anesthetics are helpful. She believes that those who undergo surgery without taking them run a high risk of dying because of excruciating pain. Stephanie Snow uses ethos as a rhetorical device to get her point that anesthetics are a positive aspect of the medical world across to the audience. Within the article, Snow refers to King Edward VII. She writes about a surgery that he had with the use of anesthetics, and she argues the point that if he would not have been under anesthesia he most likely would not have survived his operation. By using King Edward VII as an example, the author of the article gains credibility, because a king is quite a high power, and writing of one grabs the readers’ focus and makes them pay attention. The audience is not expecting for a king to be discussed within the article pertaining to anesthetics, so the author also uses the element of surprise. A flaw that lies within this article is that the author tends to briefly discuss many different, unrelated topics in each paragraph. The argument would be presented more strongly if each paragraph in the article stayed on topic. Every paragraph should have one main idea and sentences that talk about it. This article helps me to determine whether or not I really want to pursue the profession of an anesthesiologist. It makes me believe that anesthesiology is a positive thing that helps many people, and my goal in life is to have a profession that helps many people.

Sapatkin, D. (2008, July 16). Surgeon sued for giving anesthetized patient temporary tattoo. Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA), Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Newspaper Source database.

While medical patients are anesthetized, they are virtually dead to the world. If the anesthesia works correctly, the patient can not speak, feel, or hear what is going on within the operation room during his or her surgery. This is probably why a woman noticed a surprising and disturbing temporary tattoo on her abdomen shortly after an operation during which she was anesthetized. Shortly thereafter, the woman concluded that it was given to her by her doctor, Steven Kirshner, and she immediately took steps to her the surgeon sued. From the doctor’s point of view, it was hardly a malicious act against the woman. He gives tattoos to many of his patients, and they have never been taken so harshly. The tattoos were simply a harmless way of making his patient feel better after his or her operation. Although it is made clear by his lawyer that Kirshner meant no harm in giving these temporary tattoos, he will still most likely be found guilty of the charge against him. It is illegal to tamper with a patient outside of performing an operation while the patient is under anesthesia. A rhetorical device that the author uses within the article is that of ethos. He uses instances of other patients who had marks left on them by doctors. To Kirshner, these are not comparable, because in his eyes he did nothing malicious or inappropriate, but to the woman, he had committed a heinous crime. A flaw that is present within the text is that the author of the article fails to include the name of the woman to whom the temporary tattoo was given. This makes the audience of the article feel more distant to her. A way that the argument could be made stronger would be for the author of the text to include some of his own input. The two sides of the argument are made clear by everyone except for the author of the article. The article would be stronger if he let the audience see his point of view about the case. This article helps me to determine whether or not I really want to pursue this profession. The article has taught me something that I may use to my advantage as I go through my career as an anesthesiologist.