Answers to Interview Questions

I apologize for the delay with posting Matt Lang's responses to the questions I had for him, as far as the writing process goes for athletic trainers. Matt's responses were very helpful and informative, and for the most part were what I thought he would say. I hope you find them as interesting as I did.

- How much writing would you say you do in an average day's work as an athletic trainer?
Response: Writing is a part of the every day job of being an athletic trainer. You have to be on top of things and make sure your documenting things in the correct way. Overall, it is hard to say exactly how much writing is done on a daily basis, but it definitely takes up a good portion of time when I am not caring for my athletes.

  - What does this writing consist of?
Response: Writing for me consists of keeping track of a lot of information. Which is the case for other athletic trainers as well. Whether it is documenting an injury to a player, personal player information, making safety procedures, or what not there always is some sort of information that needs to be taken down. These are all slightly different forms of writing, but maintain the idea of keeping the information in an organized way so that if information needs to be found or looked back on it can.

- How is your writing put together? 
Response: My writing for the most is to get down all the necessary information that documents what happened or how things are suppose to happen. For the average person, what I write may not be that easy to understand and follow, but for athletic trainers it is very easy. It really is not all that complicated but there are some hard to understand terms that are written to describe the situation. Some of these hard to understand terms are medical terminology.

- Is writing/communication a vital part to being an athletic trainer? 
Response: It is a vital part of being an athletic trainer! Probably the most important part other than the direct care that is given to the athletes. If something is written down or documented wrong things could get very bad. For example, if an athletic trainer documents an injury wrong the care or treatment given to that athlete could be wrong or not done in another way when it should be. It is the most important way of COMMUNICATION among athletic trainers and their staff.

Matt Lang's responses were helpful for myself personally in understanding how important writing is for athletic trainers. I underestimated the vital importance of writing and documentation as the main way of communicating among athletic trainers. This opened my eyes to the ways writing can affect the quality of work done by athletic trainers and in a broader view, jobs as a whole. Hope this helps you understand the writing process of an athletic trainer and how important it is for them.