Filed under: research, rhetoric | Tags: complexity, decision-making, deliberation, medical images
In Mol & Law’s introduction to Complexities, they posit a definition of “complexity” by arguing that,
There is complexity if things relate but don’t add up, if events occur but not within the processes of linear time, and if phenomena share a space but cannot be mapped in terms of a single set of three-dimensional coordinates. (p. 1)
Later in her own chapter, Mol describes the ways that in clinical health care interviews between a patient and her doctor, “the complexities of a person’s daily experiences with pain are transformed into a metricated value” and “decisions about treatment translate this value” into some lexicalized or nominalized verbal expression (p. 222).
I find this discussion about nominalization or metrical representations of pain, disease, or health fascinating. The ways that medical professionals navigate the complexity of medical decision-making by invoking a wide range of symbol systems provides the field of Rhetoric and Writing Studies real exigence for studying such sites and practices. The ways that medical professionals move from an artifact (whether it be a medical image or an anatomical structure) to arguments about that artifact and then actions rooted in the arguments made about that artifact are deserving of our investigation.
During this year’s Conference on College Composition and Communication I presented on the ways we visually represent understand know disease. Specifically, I focused my talk on the role of medical images in cancer care deliberations. My PowerPoint slides might provide a bit of an outline for my argument when paired with the handout (which contains the two figures referenced in the PPT). I’m happy to discuss what lies in the sense-making gaps between the visual displays provided herein and what I presented orally that day as I continue to refine this argument for a broader scholarly audience.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
[...] Christa B. Teston on complexity and medical images (along with a Slideshare of her presentation) [...]
Pingback by CCCC 2010 Thoughts « Transmedia Me March 23, 2010 @ 9:16 am