Criteria for Med/Surg Research Paper
Cover Sheet:
Center the following in the middle of your first page:
Student Name
Disease process underlined
Instructor’s Name
Date
Table of Contents:
Double spaced with page numbers for each section of the paper
Definition of Disease Process:
You must tell what the disease process for your topic is, how is it diagnosed, the course
of the disease or its’ prognosis, and the treatment. This will be the “body” of your paper
and it should be more than one paragraph. You need to get your information from more
than one source and you must give the author credit. We know that you are learning
about your disease process and that this is not your own information, and that’s all right!
But you HAVE to give the author credit. Otherwise it’s called plagiarism.
Example:
“Epilepsy is a disorder of cerebral function in which the client experiences sudden
attacks of altered consciousness, motor activity, or sensory phenomenon.
Convulsive seizures are the most common type of attack.” (White, p.633)
If you restate the information in your own words you must still give the author credit. It
is not put in quotation marks but simply written in your own words.
Example:
There may be several causes of epilepsy which may include: infection, trauma,
hypoxia, alcohol toxicity, and CVA or electrolyte imbalance. (White, p. 633)
The paper should be double spaced with 1 inch margins. Use the standard font. Paper
should be white with black ink and the pages should be numbered at the bottom center..
Signs and Symptoms:
These should be written the same as the definition of the disease process to include credit
to any of the authors that you get the information from.
Nursing Diagnosis:
Listed below you will find ten body systems. You will need to rank them in priority to
the disease process that you are writing the paper about and have a nursing diagnosis for
each one. When we say “rank them in priority”, for example, if your disease is one
which impairs the lungs, then the respiratory system would rank near the top, (if not
first), for your nursing diagnoses.
The 10 systems are:Respiratory Musculoskeletal GI Immune
Cardiovascular Endocrine Urinary Reproductive
Nervous Integumentary
Justification for each of the 10 diagnoses:
This tells us why you felt the nursing diagnosis was appropriate and why you selected it
for each of the 10 systems in the order that you did.
Examples:
Respiratory – Ineffective airway clearance related to mucous accumulation
during seizure and uncontrolled tonic-clonic muscle contraction involving
respiratory muscles.
Justification – During a seizure there is mucous accumulation, which may cause
obstruction to the airway and without an airway the client will be unable to
survive.
Cardiac – Increased cardiac output related to excitability and movements during
seizure
Justification – During a seizure a great amount of energy is expended causing the
client to have hypertension or tachycardia.
AIDS:
Immune
High risk for infection related to increased susceptibility secondary to compromised
immune system.
Justification
Since HIV destroys the body’s immune system, the AIDS patient is at a high risk for
developing hospital or community acquired infections with life threatening results.
Reverse isolation should be put into action to protect these patients, as their immune
function is so low, the common cold could be fatal.
*Punctuation and spelling are important:
Remember this is a paper that counts 10% of your final grade for the class. Most
computers have spell check and grammar check – use them. Proof read your paper
several times and ask someone else to proof-read it for you as well.
References:
You must have at least 3. You may have more, which means you have spent time doing
research for the disease process. Each reference must be given credit in the paper. You
must use at least 2 books. The other(s) may be an internet site, (but nothing from
Wikipedia), pamphlet, etc.Bibliography:
Each source must be given credit.
Example:
Book
Anderson, Douglas M., Mosby’s Medical, Nursing & Allied Health Dictionary, Sixth
Edition, Mosby Inc. 2002. p. 615.
Internet
Internet. Hc-Epilepsy. www.remedyfind.com
You must have at least one visual aid – this can be a graph, chart, handout, poster, etc.
The print or pictures must be able to be read or seen by everyone in the class (Just placing
a typed page or a small picture on a piece of poster board is not sufficient). You may use
note cards for your oral presentation but you may not stand up and read your paper word
for word. The presentation itself is part of your grade, as well. You may prepare a
power-point presentation or use the equipment in the classroom, but be sure and set up a
time prior to the day of presentations in order to make sure that everything is working
properly. (All flash drives have to be pre-approved by college IT personnel prior to being
used in computers.)
Put your report in a folder that has brads of some sort to prevent them from falling out
and getting lost. You may include pictures, graphs, etc with your paper but they should
be secured in the folder.
NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
