Timothy Edgar, Seth M. Noar, and Vicki S. Freimuth, ed., Communication Perspectives on HIV/AIDS for the 21st Century (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/Taylor & Francis Group, 2008), xxix + 477...

This article presents an examination of research methods used in empirical research over a 5-year period in technical and professional communication. This examination reveals that the most common m...

Review Essay: Sustainable Scholarship and the Rhetoric of Medicine

Empirical Research in Technical and Professional Communication: A 5-Year Examination of Research Methods and a Call for Research Sustainability:

Using archival admissions records and case histories of patients at a British asylum from the 1860s to the 1870s, the authors examine the medical certification process leading to the asylum confinement of individuals judged to be “of unsound mind.” These institutional texts are, the authors suggest, “occult genres” that function as complex acts of argumentation, whose illocutionary force depends on the success of their felicity conditions. Through the lens of Austin’s concept of “uptake,” the authors analyze the role of medical certification in the admissions history of two patients at Ticehurst House Asylum in the 1860s-1870s. The authors contend that historical genre analysis plays an important role in the rhetoric of medicine and health, shedding light on the performative power of medical certification, an act essential to the practice of psychiatry.

background

Occult Genres and the Certification of Madness in a 19th-Century Lunatic Asylum:

The “Chronic Care Model” (CCM), developed by Edward H. Wagner, represents a watershed attempt to address the disconnect between acute models of care and those oriented toward chronic patients for whom lifestyle changes rooted in everyday life are a central concern. To achieve the system-wide changes needed to advance the cause of patient self-care, the CCM focuses on synergizing various layers of the healthcare system, including clinical research and quality improvements, new communication technologies, and provider-patient interactions. Crucially, the conduits that connect these layers have received scant attention, especially when it comes to the methods of interaction and persuasion that enhance the prospects for healthcare innovation. This project addresses this gap drawing inspiration from Richard McKeon’s claim that the art of rhetoric provides tools for synergizing complex and highly interactive human systems. Thus, it rhetorically re-imagines the CCM, arguing that rhetoric plays a role in cultivating better clinical practices through collaboration across the spectrum of activities that make up chronic care. To achieve this end, this project focuses on a CCM inspired case study: the Online Lifestyle Support System (OLSS), developed through a robust relationship between academic researchers and corporate disseminators. The OLSS translates an evidence-based lifestyle curriculum into an online platform designed to assist obese and diabetic patients in managing their weight and co-morbid conditions. This online system includes online lessons and live lifestyle coaching. In order to capture unique insights about the practices of lifestyle management within the OLSS, this dissertation draws on three interview projects with individuals working at each layer of chronic care delivery: lifestyle coaches, participants in the study, and those tasked with advertizing and selling the OLSS to new clinical environments. Drawing on the words of these different groups provides grist for the granular development of new insights into the practices that make-up chronic care. Finally, in framing these interview projects, this dissertation draws on rhetorically-inflected terms from the ancient Greek tradition: paideia (education), phronesis (experiential learning), and eudaimonia (the fulfilling life), to articulate the developmental and persuasive processes involved in the preparation of practitioners, the cultivation of self-care, and the effort to disseminate new research findings.

Searching for the good life: Rhetoric, medicine, and the shaping of lifestyle

The rhetoric of health and medicine has only begun to intervene in health pedagogy. In contrast, the medical humanities has spearheaded curriculum to address dehumanizing trends in medicine. This article argues that rhetorical scholars can align with medical humanities’ initiatives and uniquely contribute to health curriculum. Drawing on the author’s research on clinical simulation, the article discusses rhetorical methodologies, genre theory, and critical lenses as areas for pedagogical collaboration between rhetoricians and health practitioners.

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The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine as a “Teaching Subject”: Lessons from the Medical Humanities and Simulation Pedagogy

Should, and could, the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) develop a professional disciplinary code of ethics? In this commentary, I argue that RHM has special need for a code of ethics, but that we encounter unique barriers to codification. These barriers arise not because we are not ethical, but because we are distinctively ethical. By analyzing the rhetoric of the professional disciplinary code of ethics as a genre, it becomes evident that codes have the potential to restrict a humanities field’s ethical discourse to the domain of academic research and to limit its participation in the domains of health and medicine. Subsequently, I levy that certain generic conventions of the code of ethics do not adequately meet our needs as a health humanities field. I raise, instead, the possibility of an alternative statement of ethics that better mediates the health and humanities divide. Towards the feasibility of this prospect, I begin to theorize the notion of a “rhetorical ethics”: a conceptualization of RHM as a distinctive and legitimate approach to ethical discourse in health and medicine.

Review Essay: Sustainable Scholarship and the Rhetoric of Medicine

Citations

Empirical Research in Technical and Professional Communication: A 5-Year Examination of Research Methods and a Call for Research Sustainability:

Occult Genres and the Certification of Madness in a 19th-Century Lunatic Asylum:

Searching for the good life: Rhetoric, medicine, and the shaping of lifestyle

The Rhetoric of Health and Medicine as a “Teaching Subject”: Lessons from the Medical Humanities and Simulation Pedagogy

Ethics for Rhetoric, the Rhetoric of Ethics, and Rhetorical Ethics in Health and Medicine