significant illness
Identify an individual you do not know very well to interview regarding his/her experience with a significant illness, ideally in the recent past. The individual should not be a member of your family. This interview may take place in a private place in the community, hospital, nursing home, assisted living environment, etc and must be conducted in English. Please dress professionally although your white coat or uniform are not required. Write it up addressing the elements from the grading rubric below and save the file using your last name and then the name of the assignment.
Sections Elements Possible Points
Patient-focused elements -Whom did you interview? At a minimum include demographics such as initials (no names), sex, age, marital status, children, education, and employment.
-What was the setting of the encounter and how did you assure privacy?
-What did the person share about their lives, themselves, and their experience of health, illness, suffering or disability? At a minimum include diagnoses, duration of illness, surgeries, co-morbid illnesses, other medical or surgical history, and effective or ineffective coping abilities
-Describe how family, friends and significant others were affected by the person’s health. 30
Student-focused elements
– What were your concerns going into the interview? With what areas of the interview were you the most and the least comfortable?
– What was your emotional reaction to the encounter?
– Describe how you were empathetic and exhibited presence.
– What communication techniques did you use? How effective were they? 30
Evaluation Using the SP evaluation form on pg7-8, evaluate yourself on how you did on this interview and include the completed SP evaluation form in the write-up (20 pts).
Ask the person you interviewed for your strengths and areas for improvement and include that and your own assessment of strengths/areas to improve on pg 2 of form and also in the paper (10 pts). 30
Format Spelling, Grammar, Sentence structure, Organization, No more than 4 pages (excluding title page or optional references) with the SP evaluation form being the last 2 in the paper, double-spaced, 12 point font, 1” margins, APA format 10