Introduction to the Special Issue: Medical Humanities and/or the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine

Abstract

In 2015, my (Elizabeth's) dad was diagnosed with liver disease and was in liver failure by summer, 2017. He was added to the liver transplant waiting list that summer, putting my family on a journey that involves three main stages: pretransplant, which can last weeks to years as the recipient waits for a donor match; transplant, which lasts many hours in the operating room and is followed by weeks to months of healing and rehabilitation in the hospital; and posttransplant, which refers to the rest of the recipient's life with the donor organ. Each stage has its own challenges unique to the situation and my dad's health, but my family knew two things for sure throughout the process. First, we would be receiving a deluge of health information and specific care instructions at each stage, some of which had fatal consequences if not followed correctly; and second, we would work with the "Liver Team" at each stage of the transplant. This team includes four transplant surgeons, eight transplant physicians, nine nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, one transplant pharmacist, one transplant social worker, one financial coordinator, and three transplant coordinators who are registered nurses (one coordinator is assigned to the patient for each transplant stage). Throughout this process, and still today posttransplant, I learned how the rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM), medical humanities, and technical communication can inform one another. Scholars in these fields study and help manage the rhetorical negotiation involved in intersections of healthcare communication, patient education, and evidence-based medicine. This rhetorical negotiation was apparent while my parents and I kept track of all the specialists' roles and their relationship to my dad's care (e.g., transplant surgery, hepatology, cardiology, nephrology, psychiatry, infectious disease, critical care, dietetics, physical and occupational therapy, spiritual care). We received a binder labeled "Liver Transplant Education" once my dad was placed on the transplant list that outlined this information. Although the binder contained useful information, it was text heavy, and some of the graphics were illegible to nonmedical audiences, especially as they experienced the extreme stress of the transplant process-and the Liver Team agreed. For my family's purposes, the most useful-but also the most confusing-information included the bios of various members of the Liver Team, their specialties, and their contact information. These professionals were our go-to people for questions and concerns around the clock, but my parents and I struggled to keep track of which person we were supposed to contact with which health concern, especially pretransplant as more of my dad's bodily systems were deteriorating due to his failed liver. At one point before the transplant surgery, I suggested that we amend the transplant education materials by making a map of the Liver Team so that we could better understand the relationships among everyone. Following spatial mapping ...

Trust-Building in a Patient Forum: The Interplay of Professional and Personal Expertise

“…The rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM), as a scholarly subfield closely connected with technical communication (Angeli & Johnson-Sheehan, 2018), has focused attention not just on communication within medical institutions but also within the “wide variety of health and wellness texts, technologies, objects, agents, and agencies” that patients engage with daily, including, especially, “online networks and digital practices” (B. Scott, Segal, & Keranen, 2013, p. 2).…”