This book guides healthcare professionals hospital administrators and medical interpreters in
the United States (and internationally) in ways to better communicate with Deaf and Hard of
Hearing (D HH) patients and sign language interpreters in healthcare settings. It also provides
an overview of the healthcare communication issues with healthcare professionals and D HH
patients and the advantages and disadvantages of using in-person interpreters vs. video remote
interpreting (VRI). Due to technology development hospital administrators have popularized the
use of VRI and reduced the number of in-person interpreting services which have negatively
affected the quality of medical interpreting services and patient-provider communication. The
COVID-19 pandemic also has accelerated the move toward more VRI particularly in the US. The
book addresses an understudied aspect of access and is written by an international deaf
researcher from Japan who uses American Sign Language(ASL) and English as non-native languages.
In order to identify appropriate interpreting services for specific treatments the author
focuses on healthcare professionals' and D HH patients' interpreting preferences for critical
and non-critical care in the US and offers a new theoretical framework an Ecology of Health
Communication to contextualize and analyze these preferences. The ecological matrix and its
five analytical dimensions (i.e. physical-material psychological social spatial and
temporal) allow readers to understand how these dimensions influence healthcare professionals'
and D HH patients' interpreting preferences as well as the treatment outcomes. This book
concludes by prioritizing the use of an appropriate interpreter for specific treatments and
allocating funds for in-person interpreters for critical care treatments. Deaf Rhetoric: An
Ecology of Health Communication is primarily designed for healthcare professional students and
professionals hospital administrators medical interpreters VRI companies and healthcare
researchers. Scholars interested in the communication preferences of healthcare professionals
and deaf people also will find this text useful. The book counters some of the power
differences between healthcare providers and those who use medical services and subtly reminds
others that deaf people are not solely the receivers of medical care but actually are full
people. The field of health care is growing and medical schools are increasingly called on to
address cultural competencies this resource provides a needed intervention.