Through methods such as content analysis, survey methodology, and usability testing, researchers in this sphere recognize the importance of communication to successful healthcare.
[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.
[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.
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.
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.
[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.
[36] 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.
[41][42] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[53] Another important recent study is Gronnvoll and Landau's research to determine how the public uses metaphor to understand genetic science.
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.
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.
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.
The FDA could have achieved stasis, these authors conclude, by first reaching consensus on the following questions: What counts as clinical benefit?
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.
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?
[62] Rhetoricians have increasingly turned to computers to facilitate quantitative content analysis as they gather massive data collections from Internet sources.
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.