New technologies, patient experience, theoretical approaches and heuristics in RHM

Abstract

In the August 2015 Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ) special issue on Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM), Lisa Meloncon and Erin Frost introduced readers to this "emerging field." Since a Poiroi commentary in 2013 written by Scott, Segal, and Keränen, numerous scholars that earlier identified our sub-discipline with the terms medical rhetoric, have embraced this what might be seen as a more inclusive term, although I would argue that for some of us, the term rhetoric already included at least every possible manifestation of health, medicine and language. However, RHM does indeed cast a wider net, as pointed out in the 2015 issue, including essays on architecture, social work, and psychology. While rhetoric per se is certainly found within all fields, if writing about such fields and especially from such fields is included in RHM, then such a transdisciplinary impulse takes us very much further indeed. While this particular issue can easily find itself under the RHM umbrella, these particular scholars writing here were invited because they had participated in 2016 as a very successful panel at SIGDOC annual conference. These five scholars have much to share and teach us, as well as move us forward in our thinking, research, writing and participation in health and medical settings.