The Organizational Self: Man in the Middle or Two Heads are Better than One?

I have been re-reading some theories of identity that I read about earlier in class to see how I can tie them in to my convincing paper. I drew on a lot of ideas from Mead and James for my inquiry paper, and wanted to broaden my perspective. While flipping through “The Self We Live By”, I stumbled upon the organizational self, and looked deeper into it. This led me to think more about how one’s individual identity and social identities differ, and which identity is more important. There is the concept of the Organizational Man, which puts “the group’s interests above individual goals and priorities”(45). It says that an individual by himself is nothing, and needs to be part of a group to make a meaningful contribution to society. While I think this theory has some valid points, there are parts I disagree with. Being an engineering student, I know the importance of teamwork. There is the preconceived notion of a scientist being a recluse always spending time running experiments in his lab, until he finally makes an important discovery. However, nowadays in research, it is rarely an individual that comes up with a new development to benefit society, but rather, a team of scientists that does so. For instance, in the 1800’s, an individual, Thomas Edison, was given credit for inventing the lightbulb. But today, developments in medicine and engineering technologies are given to groups of scientists from corporations or universities. It is this combination of resources and great minds that has advanced technology to the level it is at today.

However, I do not necessarily think that someone should sacrifice his individuality for the sake of the group, as the Organizational Man states. Every individual has different goals that he or she wants to get out of life, and it is up to that individual to achieve those goals. Sometimes, collaboration with others is necessary to accomplish what that individual wants, but I think it is easy for someone to lose their own sense of identity when with a group. It is rare to find a group of people who all want exactly the same things. Rather, groups are drawn together by similar interests, and each person contributes a bit of his ideas and individuality to the group to accomplish what one person alone could not.

From a non-scientific standpoint, I feel like I sometimes act differently in groups than I would if I were alone. I have a group of very close friends that I have known from high school, and I tend to take more risks and be more bold when I am around them because I know they will support me in my decisions. However, without that network, I would probably never have the courage to be as carefree as I am with that group of friends. In that sense, the sense of belongingness in a group influences my identity in a positive way. But it is also easy to become the “man in the middle”, when someone is part of a group and conforms to group behavior. Although sometimes I do become influenced by group behavior, I still try to stick to my own individual values and stay true to my individual identity. When people see me with my group of friends, I would hope that they don’t see the entire group as having the same identity, but rather as a collection of individual identities that all share some parts in common.

My Way or the Highway

I started to look into some possible reasons and evidence for my convincing paper. In conducting my research, I found several articles that endorse George Engel’s biopsychosocial approach to patient interaction. In fact, I even found this handbook that gives guidelines for etiquette between doctors and patients. This handbook states that it is crucial for a physician to respect his patient, and display empathy for the patient’s situation. The physician must maintain eye contact with the patient as he narrates his personal account, and remain engaged in the conversation in order to establish a sense of trust. The physician must also give clear responses to the patient, using terms that can be understood by those unfamiliar with medical jargon.

After reading this article on etiquette, I started wondering why a physician WOULDN’T follow these guidelines. After all, empathy and treating others with respect seems like common sense to me, especially in a service profession. It almost made my argument seem too easy. My goal is to convince pre-medical students that extensive verbal communication is necessary for physicians to provide the most effective treatments for patients, but what convincing do I have to do if there are no opposing viewpoints?

So I sought to find articles on alternative approaches that doctors take while interacting with patients, and surprisingly found that this biopsychosocial model has not been historically used. I learned that some doctors assume a sense of autonomy, and although they interact with patients and listen to their stories, they are biased and carry a superiority complex. They already have an idea of the diagnosis, and are firmly entrenched in their idea. This stubbornness and show of professional power leads to misdiagnosis because the doctor is not really listening to the patient, but only pretending to. I wasn’t aware that these ideas were instilled within some doctors, and thought that medical training would make doctors more open to understanding the ethos of patients. Even if doctors do assume a superiority complex due to salary and years of schooling, the whole point of the healthcare profession is to serve others and put them first. On one hand, this tactic keeps doctors from becoming emotionally involved with their patients. However, they are far from being objective because they are too confident in their own judgments to listen to the situation from the patient’s viewpoint. I am trying to tie these points in somewhere in my convincing paper.

The Things We Do When No One is Looking

For the past few weeks, I have been really focused on identity and how it pertains to doctor/patient interaction, since this is the topic of my inquiry and convincing paper. However, last night, I was reading some of my fellow classmates’ blogs, and it made me realize that the theories of identity we studied in class can be applied to everyday situations, and both small and significant events that take place in our own lives. I was reading my classmate Julie’s blog, and she had some thoughts about how people do things like community service and volunteer work just so society will perceive them as good people, and not for purely altruistic reasons as they should. This difference between a person’s identity in a public sphere and his individual identity led me to think of a how a person’s internal values and morals affect his identity. I started questioning why we value the things we do. Is it because of something we personally believe due to how we were raised or experience, or something we hold to just because that’s what is generally accepted in society? Cooley’s looking-glass self can play a role here because people can center their values based on how they want others to view them, and think of themselves as they would want society to see them. I think parts of a person’s true identity can be revealed by the things he does when no one is looking. For instance, suppose a person who considered himself to be honest found a 50 dollar bill on a crowded street. That person could easily pick it up and take it. After all, with so many people on the street, who would notice? However, if he did take the money, then that would show that he is not completely honest, even though that is how he identifies himself. His rationale would be that, since society did not see him commit this act that might be considered theft, he still has the reputation of an honest man, and thus views himself in the same way. However, he has his own conscience to deal with, and even though society views him one way, as an individual, he knows what he did, and that can affect his perception of himself. This can cause dissonance between James’s self as a subject, “I”, which is the self that takes action, and Mead’s social self.

Similarly, suppose you were driving on an empty road at night, and there was a red light. Would you run it? There are no other cars in vicinity, and no police around, so that reduces the negative consequences for your actions. Some people would stick to their values of being law-abiding citizens and not run the light, while others carry the philosophy that it is ok to do something considered “wrong” in society as long as no one is watching and they do not get caught. Goffman’s theories about how the world is a stage and we are all actors can be applied here. People seem to follow a script, of societal norms, so others will perceive them as good people, even if some norms are not what they personally believe. It is in situations where no one else is looking that a person’s actual values surface, away from their social selves.

Narrative Slippage and Editing in my Blog

For this post, I have reread my blog from the very beginning and analyzed how this relates to narrative editing and narrative slippage. “The Self We Live By” describes narrative slippage as describing a story in a broad context, but also making it unique to one’s own perspective and situation. If I consider my blog to be my self in a story, then there are ways in which I align with broader construction of the group I am in, as well as ways that I differentiate myself from the rest of the group. My main audience for my blog is the students in my English 225 class and my English 225 instructor. Therefore, I make references to discussions we had in class, assuming that those who are reading my entry were in class the day we had that particular discussion. For example, in one of my posts about my new insights on inquiry, I made a reference to a class discussion we had that questioned beliefs most people took for granted, like the fact that Columbus discovered America. However, I keep in mind that other people who are not in my English 225 class may also stumble across my blog, so I try to reiterate and summarize important points that were made in class for those who were not present for the discussion.

My narrative aligns with the narratives of others in my class because we are all centering our blogs on the same basic concepts: identity, inquiry, and rhetorical analysis, to name a few. But the way in which each of us views these concepts differs, and thus makes each of our blogs unique. For instance, in my very first post, I constructed myself for an audience that judged me based on a first impression, and then used my words to counteract that first impression. Through my blog, my audience can learn a lot about me, like the different identities I merge together in social and academic situations, my respect for religious beliefs, and how I think identity relates to biomedical engineering and medicine. These characteristics make my narrative unique and differentiate it from others who are writing on the same broad topic as I am.

After reading about narrative editing in “The Self We Live By”, I have come to see that the perspective from which I am writing has changed depending on the nature of my post. Towards the beginning, my perspective is that of a student who is trying to learn more about her identity and where it falls into place in society. As I learned more about rhetorical analysis and inquiry in my English class, my perspective switched to one that was more inquisitive. I began to question many beliefs in my field, and slowly began to relate two concepts I had learned in class to my major: identity and inquiry. The posts show how my learning has been affecting my thoughts and personal development, which has pushed me to think critically about identity in medical practice. Since I am writing a first person narrative, I am expecting my audience to perceive me the way I intend for them to through my writing style and content. However, when I try to write from the perspective of a doctor, in the posts where I discuss my inquiry paper, that may not be giving my audience a completely accurate narrative, since I am not yet a doctor and therefore cannot personally identify myself with that identity. Through my posts, I have integrated a little bit of myself, and a bit of the identity I hope to obtain.

Is Communication between Doctors and Patients worth Re-evaluating?

After completing my inquiry paper, I have begun to think about what I want to claim for my convincing paper. I started to follow the steps outlined in “Aims of Argument”. For my thesis, I want to state that doctors should have strong communication with their patients and understand the behaviors and experiences that led the patient to procure his ailment in order to provide the most effective medical care. This is a broad statement, and I hope that I can narrow it down by finding case studies for evidence. First, I need to consider the audience that I am writing for. The inquiry paper was like a conversation with myself, as I organized my own thoughts on paper: the thoughts that led me to this topic. But my intended audience for the convincing paper is pre-medical students. I considered appealing my argument to doctors, but after the discussion we had in class today, I feel that should be reserved for the persuasion paper. Some doctors have entrenched views as to how they should deal with patients, whereas pre-medical students have yet to begin their medical training, so they are open to different views of patient care.

I have developed some reasons to support my thesis. I found an article that talked about the treatment of psychosomatic disorder, in which the patient experiences physical pain due to internal thoughts and perceptions but does not show any signs of bodily dysfunction. It is difficult to discern whether this is a condition that should be treated by a psychiatrist or a medical doctor. However, patients become frustrated when doctors don’t take them seriously, and doctors cannot treat ailments that they can’t see. In this situation, a study gave an example of a treatment that a medical doctor could conduct which involved extensive interviews with a patient. These interviews will hopefully reveal the mental causes of the physical symptoms, and patients will form a bond of trust with the medical doctor, which may alleviate some of the symptoms. One counterargument may be that these patients should just go see a therapist, but knowing that a medical doctor is looking at a patient gives the patient satisfaction that he is being taken seriously. If someone thinks he has a physical ailment, it will only aggravate him when he is told that the symptoms are all in his head. Understanding this aspect of patient psychology can be useful to doctors. I can use this argument in a way that will appeal to the audience’s experiences and belief system. Surely someone reading my paper will know how frustrating it is when others don’t give him proper attention when he is trying to explain something that means a lot to him.

I can also use expert opinion in my reasoning. I went into extensive detail about the biopsychosocial approach to medicine in a few posts and in my inquiry paper. George Engel, the creator of this theory, endorses verbal communication between doctors and patients and criticizes a doctor in a published letter for failing to do so. This primary source of Engel’s work will hopefully strengthen my argument.
I anticipate that a counterargument for my point of view will be that doctors have several patients to attend to in a short period of time, and therefore are on a tight schedule which will not allow them to devote so much time to one patient. I will try to refute this viewpoint using reasoning by comparison. I have not yet thought of a concrete example, but I do know that there are many situations in which talking extensively to a person that someone is trying to help allows him to provide the best care. For instance, suppose there was a tough homework assignment in a class with over a hundred students, and a student did not fully grasp the concepts needed to do the homework. Therefore, he goes into the professor’s office hours. If the professor displays the attitude that he has a hundred other students to attend to, and therefore cannot give the student the time he needs to understand the concepts, then the student’s needs are not being met. The professor could simply refer the student to a textbook or external source to find the information, which is analogous to a doctor simply prescribing pills to a patient. However, in both cases, extensive interactions are needed between both parties involved in order to maximize the help or treatment that the person needs.

Hopefully these ideas that I have circulating in my thoughts will evolve and evoke new ideas I could use for further evidence.

The Art of Narration

Reading the chapters from “The Self We Live By” about narration allowed me to think about all the components that go into telling a story. When narrating an incident, the effect of the story on the audience is not produced by simply the content of the story, it also has to do with how the speaker tells it. A speaker’s gestures, talking pace, and tone of voice can all influence how an audience interprets a story. “The Self We Live By” states that “the coherence of a personal story is not a simple matter of internal consistency”(107). For example, if I am narrating a personal incident to a group of people, I know how I feel about the incident and how it affected me. Therefore, I need to convey that emotion effectively to the audience so that they too will understand how I felt about the incident and interpret the situation in the same way that I did. Narration styles can vary depending on the composition of the audience, and on race, ethnicity, and gender. People of certain social or ethnic groups may be able to better identify with the speaker than others, and thus better understand the speaker’s point of view.

This can relate to the topic of my inquiry and convincing paper. At the end of my inquiry paper, I explore how doctors must listen carefully to their patients in order to understand a patient’s perception of his disease and provide the most effective course of treatment. A doctor must do more than simply prescribe pills for bodily ailments. He must understand how the patient’s identity and behaviors influenced the disease. The patient has to narrate his own experiences to the doctor in a way that the doctor can understand. For instance, suppose a patient has a psychosomatic disorder, in which the patient feels physiological pain, but has no bodily dysfunction. The doctor cannot physically treat what he cannot see, so he must interview the patient extensively. The patient will then describe his experiences, and what led him to feel the way he does, from which the doctor can deduce what is causing the true “pain”. Sometimes, being able to open up to a doctor, not a therapist, can alleviate psychosomatic symptoms. The patient must use effective narrative techniques to relate to the doctor on a personal level. I think this communication between doctors and patients is important because it ensures mutual trust and patient comfort, therefore leading to a healthier patient. This is something I am hoping to look more into when I write my convincing paper.

Looking at a Research Paper more in depth

I had always thought of a research paper as being very structured. In past English classes, and even in introductory engineering classes, I was asked to pick a topic I was interested in and find articles pertaining to the subject to learn more about it. The content of these articles were summarized in my paper, thus explaining how I better understood the material after extensive research. I saw research papers to essentially be in the format “I have a question, and this is what I found”. However, upon taking English 225, I have found that the research paper is much deeper than that and requires more insight. “Aims of Argument” defines inquiry to mean looking deeper into something, and seeking truth within a subject that one is passionate about. To inquire means to constantly ask questions and not blindly accept anything as fact. Every fact found in an article is open to interpretation, and thus, certain words and phrases need to be clearly defined before referencing those articles. For instance, I am writing my inquiry paper on the psychological and sociological factors that can cause disease, and how this can impact interactions between doctors and patients. I found that there are two different models used in the medical discourse; the biomedical model, and the biopsychosocial model. The biomedical model views disease as something caused solely by biochemical agents, such as pathogens. It separates the mind and body as two different entities that do not interact with each other. However, the biopsychosocial model views the mind and body as a system, and shows how health and identity can both affect each other. This got me thinking about the main difference between these models: each defined health differently. The biomedical model defined health as purely physical, whereas the biopsychosocial model defined it as physical, mental, and social well being. Just simply studying these two models was not enough; I had to carefully analyze each to find the similarities and differences.

Throughout my research, I have found sources that supported each model. I have learned how to integrate these sources, and connect the ideas that each author presents. I have taken ideas that we have talked about in class, such as George Herbert Mead’s definition of social identity, and applied it to a situation that I am passionate about. In inquiry, the answers are never clear cut. Like I said in a previous post, it is a series of questions. A person is curious about a subject, and so he does some research on it. That research leads him to pose another question, which leads to more research and more questions. Throughout the process, several sources will say varying things, and as a writer, a person has to cross-reference sources and come to a conclusion about how he can answer his questions, or future studies that can be done. English 225 has taught me to push my mind beyond the obvious and dig deeper into the realms of my interests to satiate my curiosity.

Role of Inquiry in Biomedical Engineering

In a previous post, I discussed the involvement of inquiry in science, and how some assumptions are concrete and cannot be questioned. However, I have begun to rethink about this. It seems like almost everything can be questioned, and further experiments and evidence can lead to new and improved ideas as to how something works. For example, today it is universally accepted that the Earth is a sphere. However, this was not always the notion. In fact, in the 1600’s, it was commonly thought that the world was flat. How could it not be? After all, the people at the time based their assumptions on what they saw around them-which was a flat surface! It took a few bold scientists to question these assumptions, and only then did they find that this preconceived notion was completely false. So I suppose inquiry can lead to new enlightenments, and all it takes is the patience to test a theory and carry out experiments to provide evidence for that theory.

Biomedical engineering is a relatively new field, and therefore there are several points at which inquiry can be used to improve the design of medical devices. Engineers are always seeking innovative solutions to real world problems to improve human quality of life. In order to design medical devices, engineers rely on quantitative theory, which is what they learn in classes. Basic subjects, such as circuits, fluid dynamics, and biomechanics, guide the innovative process for engineers. These subjects have theories that are taken for granted after extensive evidence has been found over centuries. Assuming that all these facts are true, engineers can integrate these subjects to design technologies that optimize a certain function. After this, inquiry is what drives the innovative process. Even if a device performs the function it is supposed to, there is always some way to make it better. For example, hip replacements are most commonly made with metal and cross-linked polyethylene. These hip replacements have been successful for patients, but have a high wear rate. Another concern is that metal ions may be released into the blood. Therefore, engineers inquire about what other materials can be used to make these replacements that are compatible with the body and have a high durability. Ceramics are durable, and do not dissociate upon interaction with blood. However, will they prove to be as durable inside the body? This led engineers to test ceramic implants. Once the tests began, engineers had to inquire about the cost effectiveness of ceramic implants, which is a whole other realm for exploration and change. Inquiry is a neverending cycle in engineering: it is only though extensive questioning that ideas are tested and altered to improve the longevity of hip replacements as well as other technologies.