Assignment Seven - Elevator Speech

Speech:

My interest in pursuing a career in information science grew as I spent my second year of medical school rotating through different clinical clerkships. Although I thoroughly enjoy the clinical aspects of medicine, I encountered several frustrating situations concerning the way patient information was handled in the hospital. Within my hospital, at least four different electronic applications were used to manage patient information. Each application had positive and negative characteristics regarding how patient information was organized, archived, and navigated, but none seemed truly tailored to the practical needs of physicians. Moreover, the patient information stored using one application was inaccessible to the other programs. Paper records were a separate entity all together. The disjointed nature of information storage and retrieval made it very difficult to consolidate all available patient information when trying to formulate an educated and complete assessment. Trying to incorporate health records from outside institutions only complicated the matter further.

Through pursuing an MS in Information Science, I gained an understanding of what goes into the design, development, and maintenance of information systems such as those used to manage health records. By combining this knowledge with my future experiences as a physician, I will be able to offer valuable input into the development of new and better applications for the delivery of patient information to healthcare providers. My goal is to acquire the tools necessary to improve the way healthcare providers navigate extensive health records, ultimately leading to better patient care.

Discussion:

I did not use any complicated process to refine my speech other than repetition. Reading something in your head and saying it out loud are two very different things. I thought I had a final version of my speech after editing it on paper, but things didn’t sound as smooth when I read it out loud. My final version included some changes in wording that made it easier for me to speak. Also, all the repetition made me more familiar with certain inflection and transition that made the speech sound better.

I gave the speech to an audience of one, and it received a lukewarm response. The content was fine, but I still came across as though I were reading a prepared speech instead of speaking naturally. This is something that I expect will come with more experience.