Previous research has identified twenty-six factors that may affect pregnancy management decisions following prenatal diagnosis of DS; however, there is no consensus about the relative importance or effects of these factors. In order to better understand patient decision-making, we conducted expansive cognitive interviews with nine former patients who received a prenatal diagnosis of DS. Our results suggest that patients attached unique meanings to factors influencing decision-making regardless of the pregnancy outcome. Nineteen of the twenty-six factors previously studied and four novel factors (rationale for testing, information quality, pregnancy experience, and perception of parenting abilities and goals) were found to be important to decision-making. We argue that qualitative studies can help characterize the complexity of decision-making following prenatal diagnosis of DS.

This article reports on an analysis of research questions in the emerging field of Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM). The data set included 54 articles, published in 4 journals between the years 2000 and 2014. The articles were found to address five areas, including questions about (a) the identity of RHM, (b) disciplinarity, (c) ecological interaction, (d) maneuverability, and (e) process. Overall, this article argues that RHM tends to take a critical stance toward medicine, treating it as a monolithic profession and set of discourses. Given the conclusions of many of the articles in the data set, this stance may be unwarranted. The article concludes by suggesting future directions for scholarship in RHM.

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This article considers the problem of conflicting researcher obligations in RHM, particularly when professional medical rhetoric is analyzed with the goal of improving patient care. Taking one case as illustrative, this article argues that medical professional participants are in positions of relative power, and that their choice to participate in RHM research or not can have downstream effects on more vulnerable patients. Furthermore, this case demonstrates that the interests of medical professional participants may diverge from the interests of their patients. As a result, when RHM researchers assume traditional orientations towards medical professional research participants, they may find themselves unable to advocate for more vulnerable patient populations.

This article analyzes narrative illustrations in genetic counseling textbooks as a way of understanding professional habitus--the dispositions that motivate professional behavior. In particular, this analysis shows that there are significant differences in how the textbooks' expository and narrative portions represent Down syndrome, genetic counseling practice, and patient behaviors. While the narrative portions of the text position the genetic counseling profession as working in service to the values of genetic medicine, the expository portions represent genetic counselors as neutral parties. Ultimately, this article argues that this ambiguity is harmful to the production of a professional habitus that is consistent with espoused professional values concerning respect for persons with disabilities and the promotion of psychosocial counseling.