Dear Colleagues,
I have included the cover copy below. If the nexus of technical communication and chronic health conditions interests you, please reach out to me directly (
Sarah....@ucf.edu)! I'd love to chat about your work and to see if The Patient Empowerment Paradox
might be a good fit for your syllabus, library, or a talk at your institution.
In gratitude,
Sarah Singer
Modern medicine asks patients to be informed and empowered partners in their own care. However, when this care system fails to provide answers, many individuals with chronic and contested illnesses use these same skills of research
and advocacy to take matters into their own hands. They seek treatment from providers who confirm their self-diagnoses while touting cures of variable safety and efficacy. Sarah Ann Singer terms this dynamic the patient empowerment paradox.
In The Patient Empowerment Paradox, Singer analyzes published narratives, interviews, healthcare provider websites, and a patient data bank, as well as her own experience as a patient, to reveal how individuals become entangled
in medical debates, misinformation, and decision fatigue. For Lyme researchers and scholars of other chronic and contested illnesses, she provides a framework to better understand the rhetoric of medical uncertainty and pave the way for improved patient outcomes.