Technical writing and communication, along with rhetoric, are absolute necessities in the healthcare field. Recently, technical writers have begun to analyze what it means to have a more inclusive outlook on technical communication. With such an outlook, technical writers and healthcare providers are able to foster better relationships between practitioners and multi-cultural groups, women, and those who identify LGBTQI+.
In Edenfield, Colton, and Holmes’ (2019) article “Always Already Geopolitical: Trans Health Care and Global Tactical Technical Communications”, transgender care, or lack thereof, is discussed in relation to geopolitics. Because of the nation-wide discrimination against Transgender people, it can be near impossible for some to access transgender related healthcare. This article identifies the relationship between tactical technical communication and how the Trans community has utilized the forum website Reddit in order to connect with other Transgender people online regarding topics all the way from general advice to the detailed process of hormone administration. The article discusses how for many, this Reddit forum is the only source of “healthcare” they can receive without substantial barriers and how the tactical technical communication used in these forums makes this process possible.
In Angeli and Johnson-Sheehan (2018) article “Medical Humanities and/or the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine”, Angeli describes the ways in which she learned how the rhetoric of health and medicine, medical humanities, and technical communication all served to inform and connected one another, through her years long journey overseeing her father’s liver transplant. Throughout her father’s medical treatment, Angeli found that the materials given to them by the liver specialists were not easily understandable, overly complex, and brimming with medical jargon. Because of this, Angeli found herself having to breakdown and reorganize the information herself in order to understand it. Bailie (2019), in her editorial “Bringing Clarity to Content Strategy suggests that in such situations, it is a content strategist’s job to “create plans to ensure that the right content gets to the right audiences in the right context” (121). In order to better facilitate a conversation between patient and providers, Angeli believes that the rhetoric of health and medicine and medical humanities need to merge together in order to create a cohesive experience.
In Welhausen’s (2015) article “Visualizing a Non-Pandemic: Considerations for Communicating Public Health Risks in Intercultural Contexts”, she researches how data visualizations of epidemic disease modify risk perceptions, globally. With her findings, she is able to recognize the influence of data visualizations and suggest the route that technical communication should take when addressing these crisis scenarios. She concludes that data visualizations are perceived differently by the public than by the scientists who create them. She iterates that the most effective strategy in order to maximize the efficacy of these data visualizations is to display quantitative information with a multitude of visualization techniques, including text explanations and relevant data.
In Davis and Dubisar’s (2019) perspective piece “Communicating Elective Sterilization: A Feminist Perspective”, they analyze the bias concerning women and contraception, more specifically, elective sterilization. The authors discuss the gendered discrepancies existing in medical materials and how it perpetuates the repression of the discussion surrounding elective sterilization. The authors urge obstetrician gynecologists to connect with technical writers and communicators in order to promote gender inequality and allow women to be at peace with their decision instead of forcing the societal norm of motherhood upon them.
Introduction to Technical Communication and Healthcare
References for Technical Communication and Healthcare
Tags: Public Health, Rhetoric, Inclusivity