Dear Colleagues,
I am delighted to share that my book, The Patient Empowerment Paradox: Lyme Disease Rhetoric and Contested Health Literacies, has been published by the University of South Carolina Press. If you order it through the press, you can use the code JSAVE20 for 20% off.
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.Singer)! 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.
Sarah Ann Singer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of English
University of Central Florida
sarah.singer | sarahannsinger.com
My book, The Patient Empowerment Paradox: Lyme Disease Rhetoric and Contested Health Literacies, is now available!
Ask me about class projects, undergraduate research, job materials, and/or applying for internships, scholarships, and fellowships!