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A Case of Multiple Professionalisms

Service Learning and Control of Communication about Organ Donation

Wayne State University, ellen.barton{at}wayne.edu

Laurie Evans

Wayne State University, evans{at}wayne.edu

This article offers a retrospective case study of a service learning project in a technical writing class. For this project, students were asked to develop a communication tool with information about consent rates in organ donation to use in an academic medical center. In contrast to the service learning literature, which notes that students often resist the professionalizing move that service learning offers, this study shows that students in this project actually overprofessionalized, constituting themselves as one more party vying for control over the communication of organ donation. This embrace of professionalism via service learning raises as many issues as the resistance to professionalism that is more commonly documented.

Key Words: service learning • organ donation • student professionalization • professional communication • case study

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