Jacob Stewart

Professor Breske

MANGMT 4140W

September 29, 2019

Networking & Interviewing

For my interview I sat down with my mom’s friend Brittany Schrader, she is a registered

nurse at a dialysis clinic. Her daily task involves hooking up patients via needle to an artificial

kidney that cleans their blood for them, because their kidneys do not work. She measures

medicine out for patients and stores it at a specific temperature to ensure viability. DaVita

requires that Brittany, and all other nurses, keep the facility sterilized to ensure patient safety.

Most importantly, she needs to be able to clearly and concisely record information on patients for

other nurses to utilize.

Brittany stated there are various reasons why grammar is important to her job. The most

crucial of these is when she reports vital information about patients to other nurses for use in

administering medicine. A grammatical error could mean an incorrect dosage of medicine, which

may result in the death of a patient. As quoted in the first day of lecture by professor Breske,

“grammar is the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit.” Brittany must

know her shit because people’s lives are on the line. The lesson I took away is that a mistake in

grammar can completely change the message you’re trying to get across.

The most important part of Brittany’s daily writing are the orders she writes for patients.

These orders tell the patients what they need to do in the days leading up to a surgery to ensure a

safe and effective operation. Clear and concise writing is essential in order to provide the patients

with easy to follow directions. According to professor Breske’s slides on communication in

business, communication is defined as the process of understanding and sharing meaning.

Brittany must use clear and concise writing to ensure the process of understanding for her

patients. The lesson I took away from this is to be clear and concise in my writing to ensure vital

information doesn’t get lost in senseless jargon.

Brittany knows what her supervisor wants to receive in an email because in the medical

world communication must only include vital information. Her supervisor prefers emails to only

entail important facts about a patient’s condition, administration of medicine, and upcoming

operations. Like the article Ten Tips for Better Business Writing, professional writing should

omit needless words, this is exactly what is required of Brittany when she write to her supervisor.

I’m somebody who rambles when they talk or write; the lesson I learned from this is important,

don’t use empty words.

In conclusion, the interview I conducted with Brittany was full of lessons I can

implement in my business writing. It was an eye-opening experience to the amount of

professional writing used in the real world. The most interesting thing to me was finding out that

even as a hands-on nurse, Brittany still uses business writing at her job on a daily basis.
 Contact Information

Name: Brittany Schrader

Title: Charge Nurse/Registered Nurse

Company Name: DaVita

Email Address: schraderb47@yahoo.com