Writing-enriched curriculum prepares MLS students for success

MLS students / Photo by Darin Kamnetz

For nearly 15 years, the Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program has educated students using a writing-enriched curriculum designed to help them become strong communicators as they enter the field.   

“The goal of the program is to intentionally integrate writing abilities specific to our profession throughout the curriculum so we can assess and evaluate undergraduate student writing from the time they come into the MLS program until they graduate," said Tami Alpaugh, assistant professor and MLS Writing Enriched Curriculum Liaison. 

That integration looks like consistently providing students with “actionable feedback” that aims to later help them identify their own errors and focusing on supporting the many students for whom English is a second language, Alpaugh said. As part of the Writing Enriched Curriculum (WEC) Legacy project, the MLS program received funding to construct a curriculum map to identify every writing opportunity students have throughout the program. The project also includes surveys of faculty, staff, employers and clinical affiliates, which allows the program to assess the perceptions and expectations (particularly from employers and clinical affiliates) of the degree of writing ability graduates enter the workforce with. 

“In the health sciences, I don't know that [writing] is really a valued skill, even though we’re adding to the patient chart and need to make sure we're writing clearly, concisely, and accurately,” Alpaugh said. “Part of it, too, is not having it be an assumed skill and making sure we're being really explicit with students in telling them why this is important and why we're integrating this and assessing their writing.”

The emphasis on development of writing skills will also ideally bolster confidence in students who wish to pursue scholarly writing, but the majority of the focus remains on how strong writing abilities aid in the everyday success of documenting lab results, communicating them to physicians, and conveying data. Not only are they communicating internally within the lab, but they’re corresponding with providers and different patient care units, all of which may use different language and lingo. Medical laboratory scientists also write the many policies and standard operating procedures that govern labs, which need to adhere to particular standards of writing, quality, and tone, according to creditors and regulatory agencies, Alpaugh explained. 

Some undergraduate students have found that the writing-enriched curriculum has improved their ability to retain information, in addition to developing their writing skills. 

“My overall experience with the writing-enriched program was that it really helped me synthesize the information I learned from lectures and the textbook,” said student Tristan Macander. “I find writing to be really helpful in my learning process, because it provides me an opportunity to reinforce and explain what I have learned.”

Similarly, student Kayla Beckel said the curriculum improved comprehension and communication of scientific material. Projects such as writing a standard operating procedure and simulating the peer-review process also helped develop Beckel’s scientific writing.

“[The curriculum] challenged me to articulate my scientific knowledge in a clear and concise manner, which in turn enhanced my understanding of the material,” Beckel said. “Overall, the writing-enriched curriculum in the MLS program was extremely beneficial to my education and has made me more prepared to enter into my career as a medical laboratory scientist.”

On top of honing those skills, the enriched curriculum seems to have made the students more confident about entering the workforce. Student Jacob Larson said that the curriculum exposed students “to complex issues within the profession that require both technical accuracy and clarity in writing” when conveying complex information as a medical laboratory specialist. 

“This foundation has been essential not only for documenting lab results but also for contributing effectively to interdisciplinary teams and advocating for patient care,” Larson said. 

The MLS program recently expanded to admit sophomore students in addition to juniors and seniors, which will help the program better assess how students’ writing skills improve and develop over the course of the curriculum. In the future, the program may even perhaps open admissions to first-year students. 

“There's an opportunity for us to scaffold writing abilities and criteria that we want our students to meet earlier in the curriculum,” Alpaugh said. “It’s kind of hard when students have only come to us during junior or senior year and we haven't had as much opportunity to look at them over a longer period of time— hopefully now, with sophomore admissions, we'll have a better opportunity to really assess their progression through the program.”