Heather J. Carmack

Knock, Knock; Who’s There? Making Sense of Organizational Entrance Through Humor

The entry of new members into an organization can be a time of uncertainty and creativity for both newcomers and veterans. This study explored how humor communication was used by members of a human service organization to negotiate the entry of newcomers. Humor was frequently utilized by all members to manage stress and uncertainty while making sense of job expectations, organizational culture, and organizational affiliations. Additionally, many members marked moments of identification with the organization through their ability to use and interpret humor in the organization successfully. Together, newcomers and veterans used humor to co-construct the organizational norms and expectations.

“It May Not Be Pretty, But It's Honest”: Examining Parental Grief on the Callapitter Blog

Following the death of a child, parents are turning to alternative means of communication to express their grief. In this instrumental case study, the authors explore how 1 woman, Amy Ambrusko, communicates her grief experience on her blog, emotionally negotiating loss and parental grief. Guided by M. S. Miless (1984) parental grief model, the authors argue that the Callapitter blog serves as a case study illustration of online parental grief. Specifically, Ambrusko displays parental grief in three ways: (re)questioning reality, experiencing discursive and corporeal guilt, and rationalizing a “new normal.” This analysis highlights the changing nature of communicating about grief and underscores how grief blogs challenge contemporary social death rules.

“What Happens on the Van, Stays on the Van”: The (Re)Structuring of Privacy and Disclosure Scripts on an Appalachian Mobile Health Clinic

Over the past two decades, mobile health clinics have emerged to address the health needs of underserved populations. Mobile clinics offer curbside care in the primary settings of people’s lives: churches, parking lots, grocery stores, and community centers. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I explore how physical and symbolic space helps shape the (re)writing of traditional health care scripts of provider—patient confidentiality and medical disclosure in a mobile clinic serving residents of 21 counties in southeastern Ohio. This analysis centered on how clinic staff members blurred the symbolic and physical space of privacy, merged personal and professional discourses, and triaged multiple patient disclosures in the face of social and spatial constraints.

“You Never Forget Your First Mistake”: Nursing Socialization, Memorable Messages, and Communication About Medical Errors

As nurses’ communication is essential to prevent, intercept, and resolve medical mistakes, it is important to understand how they learn to communicate about medical errors. In this study, we identify memorable messages about communicating about mistakes that nursing students receive during their training and how they make sense of these messages. Data were acquired through individual interviews with 68 nursing students. The data were analyzed using a thematic constant comparative method. While open and honest communication about medical errors was the overarching message participants formally and informally learned, for nursing students, communicating about medical errors is a much more complex process than using open and honest communication. When dealing with medical errors, nursing students relied on three major memorable messages to guide their communication: (a) Not everyone hears about errors, (b) hierarchy matters, and (c) passive communication is the best way to interrupt or report an error.

“He's Really Setting an Example”: Student Contributions to the Learning Environment

Student-student relationships are a critical component of the learning environment, potentially affecting it in both positive and negative ways. This study explores how students mutually construct their learning environment. Participants said students co-create a productive classroom experience by (a) modeling good student behaviors, (b) providing various forms of academic support, and (c) avoiding enacting bad student behaviors. Identifying how student-student relationships enhance the learning environment problematizes our understanding of the learning climate and educational connectedness by highlighting the impact of time and space on the entire learning experience and provides guidance for faculty, students, and administrators wishing to facilitate a positive learning climate.

A Cycle of Redemption in a Medical Error Disclosure and Apology Program

Physicians accept that they have an ethical responsibility to disclose and apologize for medical errors; however, when physicians make a medical error, they are often not given the opportunity to disclose and apologize for the mistake. In this article, I explore how one hospital negotiated the aftermath of medical mistakes through a disclosure and apology program. Specifically, I used Burke’s cycle of redemption to position the hospital’s disclosure and apology program as a redemption process and explore how the hospital physicians and administrators worked through the experiences of disclosing and apologizing for medical errors.

Exploiting Loss?: Ethical Considerations, Boundaries, and Opportunities for the Study of Death and Grief Online

More people are turning to the Internet to communicate about dying, death, and grief experiences. This theoretical article explores the ethical dilemmas, challenges, and opportunities presented to researchers interested in exploring how death and grief are communicated online. Weaving together the literatures of computer-mediated communication and thanatology (dying and death), we discuss the ways in which many common ethical dilemmas uniquely manifest related to death and grief. We also explore the emotional impact studying death and grief online has on researchers and the importance of thinking about researcher emotions on scholars who study these issues. We end with recommendations of how to move forward in the dialogue about ethics and studying death and grief online.

Healing the Healer: Stress and Coping Strategies in the Field of Temporary Medical Work

Temporary medical workers provide a vital role for the medical profession. These individuals, however, occupy a unique work arrangement as professional-specific temporary workers. Temporary medical workers often find themselves bearing the burdens of both medical workers and temporary workers. In partnership with the largest medical temporary agency in the United States, we content analyzed the responses of 86 medical temporary workers, geared at uncovering the primary stressors and coping strategies this sample enacted. Our findings concluded that temporary medical workers experienced stressors associated with both their medical and temporary roles, although more stressors were associated with temporary work than with medical care. Participants also relied heavily on coping strategies that allowed them to avoid these stressors.

Mobilizing a Narrative of Generosity: Patient Experiences on an Urban Mobile Health Clinic

Mobile health clinics address the health needs of underserved populations by bringing healthcare to patients’ communities. Mobile health clinics find unique ways to treat patients and empower them to take control of their health. In this article, we examine how patients who use an urban mobile health clinic narrate their experiences on the clinic and what they see as the impact of the clinic on the community. A narrative of generosity emerged from the interviews, where patients believe the mobile health clinic creates a sense of welcome, encourages patients to become active participants in their health, and fosters a “pay it forward” attitude among community members.

Development and Validation of the Communication Apprehension About Death Scale

Two studies (N = 621) were conducted to develop and initially validate the Communication Apprehension About Death Scale (CADS). In Study 1, 302 general public participants completed a preliminary list of 66 items. An exploratory factor analysis identified two distinct dimensions of communication apprehension about death: communication anxiety and communication avoidance. A different group of participants (n = 319) participated in Study 2. Participants in Study 2 completed the CADS measure, a fear of death measure, and a general communication apprehension measure. Concurrent validity support was provided through the significant positive correlations between communication apprehension about death and fear of death as well as communication apprehension about death and general communication apprehension. Collectively, the results suggest that the CADS is a reliable and valid self-report measure of communication apprehension about death. We conclude with a discussion of the findings as well as future directions needed to more critically examine CADS.