COMM 595 - Reflection Blog 5

Throughout this course, there have been numerous course modules that have taught me about not only communication, but how it pertains to health and medicine. Many of the lessons taught communication strategies that can be used in various scenarios and are not limited to health, which is important to understand going forward. One example of this is the 5.2.6 lesson on campaign goals and objectives. I think understanding the checklist that goes towards raising awareness for a campaign is incredibly important for not only health campaigns, but any kind of campaign. This part of the module (along with the course readings that support it) is important for what I want to do in the future, even if I don't plan to go into the health side of communication.

That being said, there are modules that taught me important information about the health side. Module 10, which is about end-of-life communication and other information related to end-of-life patients, has been incredibly helpful for me personally. Like many others, I'm at a point in my life where some of my relatives are reaching older age. Learning about the various theories, such as both TMTs, and different communication techniques hopefully long before any of my relatives reach the end-of-life stage is incredibly valuable information to me going forward.

The last lesson that stood out was module 3, which discussed health literacy. For me, being able to understand and various health messages and be able to understand different aspects of health-related products and campaigns is very important. I'm very thankful to be healthy, but I understand that knowing what you're reading on a bottle or hearing from a health professional is incredibly important for my overall health. I also have ADD and take medication, so being health literate is vital if I ever need to change prescription or stop for any reason.

I think that a lot of the ideas posed by this course are important for both health purposes and understanding various communication strategies as a whole. As a communication major looking to get into marketing or public relations, understanding the strategies that are employed when communicating professional information is a necessary skill for me professionally. I really enjoyed this course and I feel much more comfortable discussing health-related topics than I did before, but I also feel that I learned a lot about professional communication as a whole.