Rhetoric of health and medicine

Last updated

The rhetoric of health and medicine (or medical rhetoric) is an academic discipline concerning language and symbols in health and medicine. [1] Rhetoric most commonly refers to the persuasive element in human interactions and is often best studied in the specific situations in which it occurs. [2] As a subfield of rhetoric, medical rhetoric specifically analyzes and evaluates the structure, delivery, and intention of communications messages in medicine- and health-related contexts. Primary topics of focus includes patient-physician communication, health literacy, language that constructs disease knowledge, and pharmaceutical advertising (including both direct-to-consumer and direct-to-physician advertising). The general research areas are described below. Medical rhetoric is a more focused subfield of the rhetoric of science.

Contents

Practitioners from the medical rhetoric field hail from a variety of disciplines, including English studies, communication studies, and health humanities. Through methods such as content analysis, survey methodology, and usability testing, researchers in this sphere recognize the importance of communication to successful healthcare. [3]

Several communication journals, including Communication Design Quarterly, [4] Journal of Business and Technical Communication, [5] Technical Communication Quarterly , [6] and Present Tense, [7] have published special issues on themes related to medical rhetoric. The majority of research in the field is indexed in the academic database EBSCO Communication & Mass Media Complete. [8] In 2013, scholars in the field also began a biennial symposium, Discourses of Health and Medicine. [9]

History of the field

The rhetoric of health and medicine is tied to the emergence of rhetoric of science in the early 1970s and 1980s. [10] Contemporary theorists such as Kenneth Burke, Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour, and Steve Woolgar laid the theoretical groundwork for this early interest in the persuasive dimensions of scientific language. In the 1980s the field shifted when rhetorical critics like Martha Solomon and Charles Anderson began analyzing texts on biomedicine. Solomon analyzed the rhetoric used in medical reports during the Tuskegee Syphilis Project, while Anderson examined the writings of surgeon Richard Selzer to comment on the rhetoric of surgery. [11] [12]

In the 1990s, the rhetoric of health and medicine emerged more clearly as a field distinct from rhetoric of science. Rhetorical scholar Celeste Condit raised questions about the historical and rhetorical dimensions of issues like abortion and genetics in works such as 1990's Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change [13] and 1999's The Meanings of the Gene: Public Debates about Heredity. [14] In these seminal works, Condit focused on what she called "rhetorical formations," or the multiple simultaneous discourses that surrounded each rhetorical object.

The field also saw the rise of discussion on disability studies and illness narratives during the 1990s, which initiated the beginning of a Special Interest Group on disability studies at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), headed by Brenda Jo Brueggemann. [15] The initiation of this group then inspired a Medical Rhetoric Special Interest Group, headed by Barbara Heifferon, which has continued to meet annually to present day. [16]

In the early 21st century, scholars began to pay increasing attention to various topics in the rhetoric of health and medicine. J. Blake Scott's 2003 book Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing used Michel Foucault's theory of examination, which defines rhetoric as a form of disciplinary power, to examine the cultural condition that influence HIV testing. [17] He reported that the rhetoric used in public policy and various propaganda led to the stigmatization and discrimination of people with HIV/AIDS.

In 2005, Judy Segal's Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine gained recognition for highlighting the persuasive elements in diagnoses, health policies, illness experiences, and illness narratives. [18] She also addressed direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, the role of health information in creating the "worried well", and problems of trust and expertise in doctor-patient relationships.

In 2010, Lisa Keränen's Scientific Characters: Rhetoric, Politics, and Trust in Breast Cancer Research addressed issues of research viability and relationships among scientists, patients, and advocates. [19] Kimberly Emmons’ work on the rhetoric surrounding depression, Black Dogs and Blue Words: Depression and Gender in the Age of Self-Care, was published the same year. [20]

In 2018, Methodologies for the Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, edited by Lisa Melonçon and J. Blake Scott, was published, examining various methodologies in the field of rhetoric of health and medicine. [21]

Research areas

Rhetoric of pharmaceutical and science commercialization

The rhetoric of pharmaceutical and science commercialization is the study of the persuasive language and symbols that the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology companies use to communicate and influence consumers, physicians, regulatory agencies, and other stakeholders in the commercialization of biotechnology. Scholars have found that the language used to define, describe, and regulate pharmaceuticals influences the understanding and perception of the drugs among both the general public [22] and experts. [23] Information about pharmaceutical products is highly regulated [24] and filtered through many channels as it moves from scientist to consumer. [25] Despite the regulations on pharmaceutical advertising, pharmaceutical companies use carefully crafted direct-to-consumer advertising to rhetorically influence the patient-physician dialogue to drive consumption of specific pharmaceutical drugs. [26] Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies mislead physicians and scientists through deceptive rhetorical strategies in technical documentation (which both package inserts directed towards physicians and medical journal articles directed towards scientists). [23] In a recent study, a pharmaceutical company disguised negative performance in one group of subjects by selectively merging data between different patient groups in clinical trials and carefully crafting supporting statements. [23] This study shows that scientific data and knowledge is secondary to rhetorical messages supporting commercialization, and that human health is secondary to company profit. Notably, technical information is subject to obfuscation and distortion so that the message communicated outside of a commercial organization aligns with the primary goal of selling a product. Studying and trying to improve the rhetorical processes involved in pharmaceutical information as it moves through the chain of dissemination is a key concern of rhetorical scholarship on this topic. [27] [28]

Rhetoric of mental health

The rhetoric of mental health considers how language functions in the production of knowledge on topics such as mental and psychological disorders, chemical imbalances in the brain, and variations on what are considered normal mental faculties. [29] The $100 million Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, introduced by the Obama administration in 2013, is testament to the emerging importance of brain science and mental health in medical science and public policy debate. Neurorhetoric, the study of how language is used in the creation, distribution, and reception of science about the brain, has recently become an important topic in medical rhetoric and composition studies, as well as in popular science publications targeted at non-scientists. [30] Information and texts relevant to the rhetoric of mental health include psychotropic pharmaceutical regulations, their production, prescription, advertising, and consumption, and scientific and popular discussions about major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, autism, and other mental disorders. [31] [32] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM, now in its 5th edition) is a central text for the study of the mental health profession.

Patient narrative

Patient narrative is the clinical story of a person's past and present medical history documented by a medical clinician. [33] The patient narrative can also be referred to as the medical history, the History and Physical (H & P), or the clinical narrative. The H&P includes a Subject, Objective, Assessment, and Plan (SOAP note), which summarizes the patient's narrative or history of medical illness, objectively reports the patient's clinical data and lab results, assesses diagnoses and prognoses, and often recommends how to address the patient's clinical situation. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the government enacted the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which mandates that health providers transition from handwritten (typed) patient narratives to electronic patient narratives in forms such as the electronic medical record (EMR) or the electronic health record (EHR). [34] The EMR and EHR are of interest to communication scholars because they economize the words and space of the traditional patient narrative into a structured system of navigation screens and checkboxes.

Rhetorics of alternative medicine

The rhetoric of alternative medicine differs from traditional medical rhetoric in its emphasis on the persuasive aspects of language related to holistic or other nonstandard approaches. [35] Some of these alternative medical practices include acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic care. Scholars further explore alternative medical practitioners’ claims that they take a holistic approach to medical treatment, assessing a person's body, mind, and spirit, rather than just treating a disease. [36]

Patient-physician communication

Starting with references to medical care in ancient Greece, Plato's “Dialogues”, expressed that physician-patient communication should not include any “lively interactions” between the physician and patient. [37] In the Age of Enlightenment, Dr. John Gregory began to emphasize patient-physician communication by introducing the idea of preventative care for “gentleman of a liberal education.” [38] Few found his suggestive style of care useful, and the view that “physicians must assume sole responsibility for protecting the ignorant public from its folly” lived on for some time. [39] As late as the 1980s, the American Medical Association still had not incorporated regulations into their Code of Ethics that required physicians to incorporate patient opinion into the decision-making process. [40] It was not until 1996 when the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created to protect patient rights and privacy. This law was intended to assure patients that their wishes would be considered in treatment decision-making. [41] [42]

Professional opportunities

For students who take a more applied approach to health and medical rhetoric, there are an increasing number of employment opportunities in industry, government, and nonprofit organizations. Such opportunities fall into two broadly defined categories: service and advocacy.

Service

Service is a situation in which a communication expert helps a healthcare professional be more effective in his or her communication efforts. This might mean the communicator is paid to assist with a task like grant writing, editing, or authoring a medical document. Medical transcriptionists, represented by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), provide another form of professional communication in medical discourse. The AHDI is the world's largest nonprofit organization representing individuals and organizations in healthcare documentation. By ensuring documentation's accuracy, privacy, and security, the organization aims to protect public health, increase patient safety, and improve quality of care for healthcare consumers. [43] Other professional medical writing associations include the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) and the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE).

Sometimes these medical authors are considered “ghostwriters,” or paid writers who write a communicative piece but are not formally acknowledged as a text's author. Karen L. Wooley says that professional writers must adhere to ethical guidelines that ghostwriters may not be expected to follow. While authors control their content when working with a professional medical writer, Wooley says that ghostwriters may try to take control of the content away from the author and hide certain facts, such as where a project's funding comes from. [44] Researchers such as Elliott Moffatt are concerned that medical ghostwriting, especially in the context of pharmaceutical research, is dangerous to public health. [45] Possible dangers can include misrepresenting the data and subtly influencing the way clinicians and patients perceive the data.

Advocacy

Advocacy in medical rhetoric is a situation in which the communicator addresses a health-related topic, empowering the citizens of a community to understand how that issue impacts them. This type of health communication enables the public to understand a health issue more thoroughly, providing them with the tools necessary to challenge or change existing power structures within their own communities. Advocacy is often associated with risk communication, the process of explaining natural disasters, human-made hazards, and behavioral practices to the public in a way they can understand. Theorists such as Don Nutbeam propose a need for advocacy and say that health literacy, or people's ability to access and make decisions with health information, is an important part of empowerment. [46] Nick Pidgeon and Baruch Fischhoff say that communicating complex medical or health information to the public is difficult because past scientists failed to base their communication on solid principles and evidence. [47] Based on these past failures, Pidgeon and Fischhoff argue for a simpler and trustworthier model of science communication. In response to this issue, Jeffrey T. Grabill and W. Michele Simmons propose that technical communicators can provide advocacy because they have both good writing skills and an ability to understand and convey information to patients. [48]

Rhetorical concepts

Rhetoric, like any field of study, is made up of constituent parts. These parts are often referred to as either rhetorical concepts or rhetorical principles. Rhetorical concepts can be seen as tools of the trade that allow rhetoricians to effectively communicate in a way that is most likely to persuade readers and audiences of the messages and meanings intended by the rhetorician. Rhetorical concepts are an important part of what makes an argument persuasive, and all effective arguments inherently contain them. Rhetorical concepts help rhetoricians convey information that would otherwise be unascertainable by the audience, which is especially important for topics that carry heavy implications, such as the complications that often follow complex medical and health needs. [49]

Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are a type of figurative language that often convey specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words that make up the figure. Often providing emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity, they can be used to explain complex, unknown topics to readers and audiences in a way that makes them easier for the reader to understand. [50]

Metaphor and analogy

Metaphor and analogy are important in scientific communication because they make new ideas understandable to both expert and nonexpert audiences. [51] Disease, for example, which is difficult to comprehend on both large and microbiological scales, is often communicated through metaphor and analogy. When a public health campaign “wages war” on cancer, or a microbiologist describes a virus as “attacking” a cell, these forceful words create a war-like metaphor for understanding the way disease works. Notable work in this area has been done by Judy Segal, who chronicled the impact of five biomedical metaphors in her book Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine, including ‘‘medicine is war,’’ ‘‘the body is a machine,’’ ‘‘diagnosis is health,’’ ‘‘medicine is a business,’’ and ‘‘the person is genes, ’’ all of which have had academic, cultural, and social impacts on the way medicine is practiced and understood. [52] Monika Cwiarka has also questioned the use of laboratory mice in behavior-based studies, asking whether certain behaviors observed in mice can be considered analogous to those observed in humans. [53] Another important recent study is Gronnvoll and Landau's research to determine how the public uses metaphor to understand genetic science. [54]

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a figure of speech more often used by a patient when speaking with a doctor than by doctors communicating with their patients. Where some figures of speech can help to lend meaning or understanding to medical and scientific communication, hyperbole often obscures the truth by exaggerating it, which can have detrimental and even deadly results. Headaches, for example, can occasionally be described by patients as feeling as if their “head’s going to explode.” This type of communication can make it difficult for doctors to understand the true gravity of a symptom, which may lead to misdiagnosis. Furthermore, doctors and scientists need to be especially aware of the negative implications that hyperbole can have in medical discourses. As Joseph Loscalzo points out in his article Clinical Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine in an Era of Marginal Benefit, Bias, and Hyperbole, the use of hyperbole by investigators during medical trials can “often prejudice the trialist in favor of a positive result.” [55] When investigators provide trialists with bias, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the data that is collected may be skewed in the direction of the bias provided by the investigator.

Stasis

Consider a hypothetical conversation between two parties about health care reform. One party may wish to argue the moral necessity of health care reform while the other party wishes to argue that health care reform is economically infeasible. Until both parties agree on the issue at hand (whether it be the economic or moral considerations of health care reform), resolution of the argument cannot take place. Once the parties have agreed on the issue at hand, they have achieved rhetorical stasis. The idea of first agreeing to the issue at hand is central to any discussion between rational people. One example of how stasis can apply to health and medical rhetoric is provided in a recent article by Christa Teston and Scott Graham. These researchers applied the rhetorical concept of stasis to medical discourse by reviewing the FDA discussion on Avastin as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer. They concluded that the absence of stasis resulted in miscommunication between the interested parties. The FDA could have achieved stasis, these authors conclude, by first reaching consensus on the following questions: What counts as clinical benefit? What kinds of evidence would be deemed meaningful? [56]

Rhetorical Appeals

The rhetorical appeals, often referred to as modes of persuasion or ethical strategies, are a set of rhetorical concepts used to persuade audiences. Initially introduced by Aristotle in On Rhetoric, the appeals focus on three ways to persuade your audience: by appealing to the character of the speaker (ethos), the emotions of the audience (pathos), or the logic/truth of the argument itself (logos). [57]

Ethos

Ethos is an appeal to the authority or credibility of the presenter and is especially important in health and medicine communication. As Sarah Bigi explains in her article The Persuasive Role of Ethos in doctor-patient Interactions, “physicians are expected to inform, advise and persuade patients regarding their health problems.” [58] In order to successfully persuade their patients, doctors need to rely on the rhetorical appeals, and the appeal that patients seem to care about the most is the ethos of the doctor. If a doctor does not seem credible, then a patient is unlikely to follow their instructions or diagnosis, which can lead to further health complications down the line.

Pathos

Pathos is an appeal to the audience's emotions. The speaker may use pathos in a multitude of ways; however, in terms of the rhetoric of health and medicine, two particular emotions stand out: fear and hope.

When doctors appeal to fear it is not done so lightly. Doctors have to decide if instilling fear in their patient is the right tactic for persuading their patients to agree with the physician's treatment plan. For instance, if a patient has diabetes and is likely to lose a toe or foot if they do not change the way they treat their condition, it is up to the doctor to decide when to stop telling their patient that “changing your habits will give you a better life” and to start telling their patient that “if you don’t stop your current habits, you’re going to lose a foot.”

When doctors appeal to hope, the doctor tries to persuade the patient through describing a scenario of a positive future that's only possible by the patient following the doctor's orders. In some cases, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the act of presenting this positive emotional state can actually create a positive result in itself.

Logos

Logos is logical appeal or the simulation of it. It is normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speaker's claims or thesis. It is important to health and medicine communications because patients want to know which treatments work best, and they want the scientific data to prove it. Having an appeal to logic also enhances ethos because information makes the speaker look knowledgeable and prepared to his or her audience. However, the data can be confusing and thus confuse the audience. So, the doctor has to make sure to leverage the appeals to best persuade their patients. Doctors must decide how many facts and figures are appropriate to persuade an audience of the factual basis of the argument while portraying themselves as a credible speaker and playing to the right emotional state of their patient---all to get the patient to follow the doctor's orders.

Research methodology

Rhetoricians of health and medicine conduct research primarily through qualitative methods, although quantitative methods are also occasionally employed. Scholars in the field apply these techniques to understand how and for what reasons health and medical communication is accomplished.

Content analysis

Through content analysis, scholars strive to answer the questions first formulated by political scientist Harold Lasswell as they apply to health and medicine texts: “Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?" [59] For example, researchers might study the content of pharmaceutical advertisements on television to determine their appeals to potential consumers. [60] Others might examine the communication of health information via new media such as Twitter [61] and Facebook. [62] Rhetoricians have increasingly turned to computers to facilitate quantitative content analysis as they gather massive data collections from Internet sources. [63]

Survey research

Researchers in the field are also concerned with the effectiveness of health and medical communications. Audience surveys are often used to determine if a target audience understands a given set of health or medical instructions. The results help researchers adjust these instructions and assist audiences in achieving functional health literacy. [64] Other surveys gauge the public's attitudes and knowledge regarding important medical topics such as mental health. This sort of research identifies gaps for public health agencies to address in their communications.

Usability testing

Creators of health and medical communications often test their work with a subset of their target audience before its wider release. This practice is particularly important when content creators are not themselves part of their target audience, as is often the case for communications that address vulnerable communities such as senior citizens [65] or immigrants with English as a second language. [66] Usability research can include techniques such as “think aloud” testing, in which potential users talk the researcher through their navigation of a given computer program or text. Evaluations by experts in other fields, such as design or user experience, are also employed.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhetoric</span> Art of persuasion

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writers use to inform, persuade, and motivate their audiences. Rhetoric also provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations.

Internal medicine, also known as general internal medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of internal diseases in adults. Medical practitioners of internal medicine are referred to as internists, or physicians in Commonwealth nations. Internists possess specialized skills in managing patients with undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes. They provide care to both hospitalized (inpatient) and ambulatory (outpatient) patients and often contribute significantly to teaching and research. Internists are qualified physicians who have undergone postgraduate training in internal medicine, and should not be confused with "interns", a term commonly used for a medical doctor who has obtained a medical degree but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual rhetoric</span> Communication through visual elements

Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Drawing on techniques from semiotics and rhetorical analysis, visual rhetoric expands on visual literacy as it examines the structure of an image with the focus on its persuasive effects on an audience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Credibility</span> Believability of a source or message

Credibility comprises the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Credibility dates back to Aristotle theory of Rhetoric. Aristotle defines rhetoric as the ability to see what is possibly persuasive in every situation. He divided the means of persuasion into three categories, namely Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, which he believed have the capacity to influence the receiver of a message. According to Aristotle, the term "Ethos" deals with the character of the speaker. The intent of the speaker is to appear credible. In fact, the speaker's ethos is a rhetorical strategy employed by an orator whose purpose is to "inspire trust in his audience". Credibility has two key components: trustworthiness and expertise, which both have objective and subjective components. Trustworthiness is based more on subjective factors, but can include objective measurements such as established reliability. Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived, but also includes relatively objective characteristics of the source or message. Secondary components of credibility include source dynamism (charisma) and physical attractiveness.

Pharmaceutical marketing is a branch of marketing science and practice focused on the communication, differential positioning and commercialization of pharmaceutical products, like specialist drugs, biotech drugs and over-the-counter drugs. By extension, this definition is sometimes also used for marketing practices applied to nutraceuticals and medical devices.

Pathos appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term most used often in rhetoric, as well as in literature, film and other narrative art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital rhetoric</span> Forms of communication via digital mediums

Digital rhetoric is communication that exists in the digital sphere. It can be expressed in many different forms, including text, images, videos, and software. Due to the increasingly mediated nature of contemporary society, distinctions between digital and non-digital environments are less clear. This has expanded the scope of digital rhetoric to account for the increased fluidity with which humans interact with technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhetoric of science</span> Body of scholarly literature

Rhetoric of science is a body of scholarly literature exploring the notion that the practice of science is a rhetorical activity. It emerged after a number of similarly oriented topics of research and discussion during the late 20th century, including the sociology of scientific knowledge, history of science, and philosophy of science, but it is practiced most typically by rhetoricians in academic departments of English, speech, and communication.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and parts of the Commonwealth, consultant is the title of a senior hospital-based physician or surgeon who has completed all of their specialist training and been placed on the specialist register in their chosen speciality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dramatism</span> Interpretive communication studies theory

Dramatism, a communication studies theory, was developed by Kenneth Burke as a tool for analyzing human relationships through the use of language. Burke viewed dramatism from the lens of logology, which studies how people's ways of speaking shape their attitudes towards the world. According to this theory, the world is a stage where all the people present are actors and their actions parallel a drama. Burke then correlates dramatism with motivation, saying that people are "motivated" to behave in response to certain situations, similar to how actors in a play are motivated to behave or function. Burke discusses two important ideas – that life is drama, and the ultimate motive of rhetoric is the purging of guilt. Burke recognized guilt as the base of human emotions and motivations for action. As cited in "A Note on Burke on "Motive"", the author recognized the importance of "motive" in Burke's work. In "Kenneth Burke's concept of motives in rhetorical theory", the authors mentioned that Burke believes that guilt, "combined with other constructs, describes the totality of the compelling force within an event which explains why the event took place."

Limited English proficiency (LEP) is a term used in the United States that refers to a person who is not fluent in the English language, often because it is not their native language. Both LEP and English-language learner (ELL) are terms used by the Office for Civil Rights, a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Education.

The doctor–patient relationship is a central part of health care and the practice of medicine. A doctor–patient relationship is formed when a doctor attends to a patient's medical needs and is usually through consent. This relationship is built on trust, respect, communication, and a common understanding of both the doctor and patients' sides. The trust aspect of this relationship goes is mutual: the doctor trusts the patient to reveal any information that may be relevant to the case, and in turn, the patient trusts the doctor to respect their privacy and not disclose this information to outside parties.

Rhetorical stance refers to the deliberate choices made by a communicator in shaping and presenting their message. It encompasses the strategic decisions regarding language, style, and tone that are employed to achieve a specific communicative purpose. This concept is deeply rooted in rhetorical theory and is a fundamental aspect of effective communication across various disciplines, including literature, public speaking, and academic writing.

Medication costs, also known as drug costs are a common health care cost for many people and health care systems. Prescription costs are the costs to the end consumer. Medication costs are influenced by multiple factors such as patents, stakeholder influence, and marketing expenses. A number of countries including Canada, parts of Europe, and Brazil use external reference pricing as a means to compare drug prices and to determine a base price for a particular medication. Other countries use pharmacoeconomics, which looks at the cost/benefit of a product in terms of quality of life, alternative treatments, and cost reduction or avoidance in other parts of the health care system. Structures like the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and to a lesser extent Canada's Common Drug Review evaluate products in this way.

Health communication is the study and practice of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient. The purpose of disseminating health information is to influence personal health choices by improving health literacy. Health communication is a unique niche in healthcare that allows professionals to use communication strategies to inform and influence decisions and actions of the public to improve health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhetorical situation</span> Context of a rhetorical event

A rhetorical situation is an event that consists of an issue, an audience, and a set of constraints. A rhetorical situation arises from a given context or exigence. An article by Lloyd Bitzer introduced the model of the rhetorical situation in 1968, which was later challenged and modified by Richard E. Vatz (1973) and Scott Consigny (1974). More recent scholarship has further redefined the model to include more expansive views of rhetorical operations and ecologies.

Graphic medicine connotes the use of comics in medical education and patient care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Native American rhetoric</span> Academic rhetoric used by Indigenous peoples

Native American rhetoric is the rhetoric used by Indigenous peoples for purposes of self-determination and self-naming, in academia and a variety of media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural competence in healthcare</span> Health care services that are sensitive and responsive to the needs of diverse cultures

Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability for healthcare professionals to demonstrate cultural competence toward patients with diverse values, beliefs, and feelings. This process includes consideration of the individual social, cultural, and psychological needs of patients for effective cross-cultural communication with their health care providers. The goal of cultural competence in health care is to reduce health disparities and to provide optimal care to patients regardless of their race, gender, ethnic background, native languages spoken, and religious or cultural beliefs. Cultural competency training is important in health care fields where human interaction is common, including medicine, nursing, allied health, mental health, social work, pharmacy, oral health, and public health fields.

Conflict of interest in the health care industry occurs when the primary goal of protecting and increasing the health of patients comes into conflict with any other secondary goal, especially personal gain to healthcare professionals, and increasing revenue to a healthcare organization from selling health care products and services. The public and private sectors of the medical-industrial complex have various conflicts of interest which are specific to these entities.

References

  1. ↑ Segal, J.Z. (2008). Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN   978-0-8093-2866-6 . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  2. ↑ Derkatch, Colleen and Judy Segal (2005). "Realms of Rhetoric in Health and Medicine". University of Toronto Medical Journal.
  3. ↑ Mirel, Barbara; Barton, Ellen; Ackerman, Mark (2008-06-06). "Researching Telemedicine: Capturing Complex Clinical Interactions with a Simple Interface Design". Technical Communication Quarterly. 17 (3): 358–378. doi:10.1080/10572250802100477. ISSN   1057-2252.
  4. ↑ "Communication Design Quarterly" (PDF). sigdoc.acm.org. Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved 2 July 2024.
  5. ↑ Barton, Ellen (2005). "Introduction to the Special Issue: The Discourses of Medicine". Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 19 (3): 245–248. doi:10.1177/1050651905275636. ISSN   1050-6519.
  6. ↑ Koerber, Amy; Still, Brian (2008-06-06). "Guest Editors' Introduction: Online Health Communication". Technical Communication Quarterly. 17 (3): 259–263. doi:10.1080/10572250802100329. ISSN   1057-2252.
  7. ↑ "Our First Special Issue: Medical, Gender, and Body Rhetorics – Present Tense". Present Tense – A Journal of Rhetoric in Society. 2012-10-21. Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  8. ↑ "Communication & Mass Media Complete | EBSCO". www.ebsco.com.
  9. ↑ Meloncon, Lisa. "Discourses of Health and Medicine". Discourses of Health and Medicine: Looking Forward 2015.
  10. ↑ Segal, Judy Z. (2005). "Interdisciplinarity and Bibliography in Rhetoric of Health and Medicine". Technical Communication Quarterly. 14 (3): 311–318. doi:10.1207/s15427625tcq1403_9. ISSN   1057-2252.
  11. ↑ Solomon, Martha (February 1985). "The rhetoric of dehumanization: An analysis of medical reports of the Tuskegee syphilis project". Western Journal of Speech Communication. 49 (4): 233–247. doi:10.1080/10570318509374200. PMID   11623465.
  12. ↑ Anderson, Charles (1989). Richard Selzer and the Rhetoric of Surgery. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN   978-0-8093-8045-9.
  13. ↑ Condit, Celeste (1990). Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change . University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0252016479.
  14. ↑ Condit, Celeste (1999). The Meanings of the Gene: Public Debates about Human Heredity. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   978-0299163648.
  15. ↑ Heifferon, Barbara. "History of Medical Rhetoric in Technical Communication". Rhetoricians of Health and Medicine.
  16. ↑ "CCCC Medical Rhetoric Standing Group". Rhetoricians of Health and Medicine.
  17. ↑ Scott, J. Blake (2003). Risky Rhetoric: AIDS and the Cultural Practices of HIV Testing. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN   978-0809324958.
  18. ↑ Segal, Judy (2005). Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine. Southern Illinois University Press.
  19. ↑ Keranen, Lisa (2010). Scientific Characters: Rhetoric, Politics, and Trust in Breast Cancer Research. The University of Alabama Press. ISBN   9780817384913.
  20. ↑ Emmons, Kimberly (2010). Black Dogs and Blue Words: Depression and Gender in the Age of Self-Care. Rutgers University Press. ISBN   978-0813571423.
  21. ↑ Methodologies for the rhetoric of health and medicine. Lisa Melonçon, J. Blake Scott. New York, NY. 2018. ISBN   978-1-315-30374-1. OCLC   993589347.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. ↑ Segal, Judy Z. “What, in Addition to Drugs, Do Pharmaceutical Ads Sell? The Rhetoric of Pleasure in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Prescription Pharmaceuticals.” Rhetorical Questions of Health and Medicine. Ed. Joan Leach and Deborah Dysart-Gale. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010.
  23. 1 2 3 Mogull, Scott A. (2017). Science vs. science commercialization in neoliberalism (extreme capitalism): Examining the conflicts and ethics of information sharing in opposing social systems. In H. Yu & K. M. Northcut (Eds.), Scientific Communication: Practices, Theories, and Pedagogies . New York: Routledge.
  24. ↑ Mogull, Scott A. (2008). "Chronology of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Regulation in the United States". AMWA Journal. 23: 3.
  25. ↑ Bernick, Philip, Stephen Bernhardt, and Gregory Cuppan. “The Genre of the Clinical Study Report in Drug Development.” Rhetoric of Healthcare: Essays toward a New Disciplinary Inquiry. Ed. Barbara Heifferon and Stuart C. Brown. New York: Hampton Press, 2008. Print.
  26. ↑ Mogull, Scott A.; Balzhiser, Deborah (September 2015). "Pharmaceutical Companies Are Writing the Script for Health Consumerism". Commun. Des. Q. Rev. 3 (4): 35–49. doi:10.1145/2826972.2826976. ISSN   2166-1200. S2CID   14908255.
  27. ↑ Bernhardt, Stephen A. (2003). "Improving Document Review Practices in Pharmaceutical Companies". Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 17 (4). SAGE Publications: 439–473. doi:10.1177/1050651903255345. ISSN   1050-6519.
  28. ↑ Tomlin, Rita C. (2008-06-06). "Online FDA Regulations: Implications for Medical Writers". Technical Communication Quarterly. 17 (3): 289–310. doi:10.1080/10572250802100410. ISSN   1057-2252.
  29. ↑ McCARTHY, Lucille Parkinson; Gerring, Joan Page (1994). "Revising Psychiatry's Charter Document: DSM-IV". Written Communication. 11 (2): 147–192. doi:10.1177/0741088394011002001. ISSN   0741-0883.
  30. ↑ Jack, Jordynn (2010). "What are Neurorhetorics?". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 40 (5). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 405–410. doi:10.1080/02773945.2010.519758. ISSN   0277-3945. JSTOR   40997104 . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  31. ↑ Berkenkotter, Carol (2008). Patient Tales: Case Histories and the Uses of Narrative in Psychiarty. University of South Carolina Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv2xh53ht. ISBN   978-1-57003-761-0. JSTOR   j.ctv2xh53ht . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  32. ↑ Johnson, Jenell (2010). "The Skeleton on the Couch: The Eagleton Affair, Rhetorical Disability, and the Stigma of Mental Illness". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 40 (5). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 459–478. doi:10.1080/02773945.2010.517234. ISSN   0277-3945. JSTOR   40997107 . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  33. ↑ Shapiro, Johanna (1993). "The use of narrative in the doctor-patient encounter". Family Systems Medicine. 11 (1): 47–53. doi:10.1037/h0089128. ISSN   0736-1718.
  34. ↑ Park, Seung L., Anvil V. Parwani, and Liron Pantanowitz. “Electronic Medical Records.” Practical informatics for Cytopathology 14 (2014): 121-127.
  35. ↑ Derkatch, Colleen (2012). "Demarcating Medicine's Boundaries: Constituting and Categorizing in the Journals of the American Medical Association". Technical Communication Quarterly. 21 (3): 210–229. doi:10.1080/10572252.2012.663744. ISSN   1057-2252.
  36. ↑ "FAQs." FAQs. American Holistic Medical Association (AHMA), n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. < "FAQs". Archived from the original on 2014-02-09. Retrieved 2014-01-31.>.
  37. ↑ Katz, J. (2002). The Silent World of Doctor and Patient. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN   978-0-8018-5780-5 . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  38. ↑ Katz, 13
  39. ↑ Katz, 14
  40. ↑ "Health Literacy". American Medical Association. Archived from the original on April 18, 2011.
  41. ↑ "Health Information Privacy". HHS.gov. Archived from the original on August 1, 2013.
  42. ↑ Sharf, Barbara F.; Street Jr., Richard L. (1997). "The Patient as a Central Construct: Shifting the Emphasis". Health Communication. 9 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1207/s15327027hc0901_1. ISSN   1041-0236.
  43. ↑ "AHDI: Capturing America's Healthcare Story." AHDI Home. AHDI, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
  44. ↑ Mathews, Anna Wilde (2005-12-13). "Ghost story: at medical journals, writers paid by industry play big role". Wall Street Journal (Eastern Ed.): A1, A8. ISSN   0099-9660. PMID   16506304.
  45. ↑ Moffatt, Barton; Elliott, Carl (2007). "Ghost Marketing: Pharmaceutical Companies and Ghostwritten Journal Articles". Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 50 (1). Project MUSE: 18–31. doi:10.1353/pbm.2007.0009. ISSN   1529-8795. PMID   17259673.
  46. ↑ Nutbeam, D. (2000-09-01). "Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century". Health Promotion International. 15 (3): 259–267. doi:10.1093/heapro/15.3.259.
  47. ↑ Pidgeon, Nick; Fischhoff, Baruch (2011-03-29). "The role of social and decision sciences in communicating uncertain climate risks". Nature Climate Change. 1 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 35–41. Bibcode:2011NatCC...1...35P. doi:10.1038/nclimate1080. ISSN   1758-678X.
  48. ↑ Grabill, Jeffrey T.; Simmons, W. Michele (1998). "Toward a critical rhetoric of risk communication: Producing citizens and the role of technical communicators". Technical Communication Quarterly. 7 (4): 415–441. doi:10.1080/10572259809364640. ISSN   1057-2252.
  49. ↑ Gronnvoll, Marita; Landau, Jamie (2010-01-21). "From Viruses to Russian Roulette to Dance: A Rhetorical Critique and Creation of Genetic Metaphors". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 40 (1). Informa UK Limited: 46–70. doi:10.1080/02773940903413415. ISSN   0277-3945. PMC   2897184 . PMID   20625448.
  50. ↑ Del Mar, Emanuel. A Grammar of the English Language. London: Cradock, 1842.
  51. ↑ Baake, Ken. Metaphor and Knowledge: The Challenges of Writing Science. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003.
  52. ↑ See biomedical metaphors in Segal, Judy Z. Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005.
  53. ↑ Cwiarka, M. "How do Mice Mean? The Rhetoric of Measurement in the Medical Laboratory. In J. Leach and D. Dysart-Gale, (Eds.), Rhetorical Questions of Health and Medicine. (pp. 33-58).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011.
  54. ↑ Gronnvoll, Marita, and Jamie Landau. "From Viruses to Russian Roulette to Dance: A Rhetorical Critique and Creation of Genetic Metaphors." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 40 (2010): 46-70.
  55. ↑ Loscalzo, Joseph (2005-11-15). "Clinical Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine in an Era of Marginal Benefit, Bias, and Hyperbole". Circulation. 112 (20). Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health): 3026–3029. doi:10.1161/circulationaha.105.594614. ISSN   0009-7322. PMID   16286598.
  56. ↑ "Stasis Theory and Meaningful Public Participation in Pharmaceutical Policy – Present Tense". Present Tense – A Journal of Rhetoric in Society. 2012-10-16. Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  57. ↑ Cooper, L. (1960). The Rhetoric of Aristotle: An Expanded Translation with Supplementary Examples for Students of Composition and Public Speaking. Appleton-Century-Crofts. ISBN   978-0-13-780692-8 . Retrieved 2024-07-02.
  58. ↑ Bigi, Sarah (2011-11-29). "The Persuasive Role of Ethos in Doctor-Patient Interactions". Communication and Medicine. 8 (1). Equinox Publishing: 67–76. doi:10.1558/cam.v8i1.67 (inactive 13 December 2024). ISSN   1613-3625. PMID   22616357.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of December 2024 (link)
  59. ↑ Lasswell, Harold (1948). Power and Personality. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  60. ↑ Frosch, Dominick L.; Krueger, Patrick M.; Hornik, Robert C.; Cronholm, Peter F.; Barg, Frances K. (2007-01-01). "Creating Demand for Prescription Drugs: A Content Analysis of Television Direct-to-Consumer Advertising". Annals of Family Medicine. 5 (1): 6–13. doi:10.1370/afm.611. ISSN   1544-1709. PMC   1783924 . PMID   17261859.
  61. ↑ Lee, Joy L; DeCamp, Matthew; Dredze, Mark; Chisolm, Margaret S; Berger, Zackary D (2014-10-15). "What Are Health-Related Users Tweeting? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Health-Related Users and Their Messages on Twitter". Journal of Medical Internet Research. 16 (10): e237. doi: 10.2196/jmir.3765 . PMC   4296104 . PMID   25591063.
  62. ↑ Zhang, Yan; He, Dan; Sang, Yoonmo (2013-06-01). "Facebook as a platform for health information and communication: a case study of a diabetes group". Journal of Medical Systems. 37 (3): 9942. doi:10.1007/s10916-013-9942-7. ISSN   1573-689X. PMID   23588823. S2CID   3521506.
  63. ↑ Nimrod, Galit (2010-06-01). "Seniors' Online Communities: A Quantitative Content Analysis". The Gerontologist. 50 (3): 382–392. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnp141 . ISSN   0016-9013. PMID   19917645.
  64. ↑ Williams, Mark V. (1995-12-06). "INadequate functional health literacy among patients at two public hospitals". JAMA. 274 (21): 1677–1682. doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03530210031026. ISSN   0098-7484. PMID   7474271.
  65. ↑ Lin, Carolyn A.; Neafsey, Patricia J.; Strickler, Zoe (2009-03-16). "Usability Testing by Older Adults of a Computer-Mediated Health Communication Program". Journal of Health Communication. 14 (2): 102–118. doi:10.1080/10810730802659095. ISSN   1081-0730. PMC   2964868 . PMID   19283536.
  66. ↑ Moore, Mary; Bias, Randolph G.; Prentice, Katherine; Fletcher, Robin; Vaughn, Terry (2009-04-01). "Web usability testing with a Hispanic medically underserved population". Journal of the Medical Library Association. 97 (2): 114–121. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.97.2.008. ISSN   1536-5050. PMC   2670225 . PMID   19404502.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.