A Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Soundscape: Physiological Monitors, Rhetorical Ventriloquism, and Earwitnessing

Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Apr 2019

A Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Soundscape: Physiological Monitors, Rhetorical Ventriloquism, and Earwitnessing

Kristin Marie Bivens

Abstract

Considering aurality (hearing) and sonicity (sounds/noises) in our research sites promises much for rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) scholars. To show this value, I argue aural awareness of soundscapes provide opportunities to sensorially enrich our understanding of sonic experiences in acute care hospital settings, as in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) site at the center of my case study. To that end, the purpose of this article is threefold: 1) to identify aurality as a sensorial aspect in healthcare sensescapes worthy of RHM inquiry; 2) to foreground how these soundscapes shape care and caretaking in healthcare and clinical settings; and 3) to propose more careful considering and attending, as “earwitnesses,” to the sonic experiences of bodies in these settings. In the process, I propose “rhetorical ventriloquism” as a useful, responsible concept to consider how these sounds and noises appear to stand in for bodies and their physiologies and shape those bodies’ care, while amplifying those bodies as the healthcare technologies speak and sound for them. Furthermore, I suggest RHM scholars can act as earwitnesses who attend to sonicity and aurality in healthcare and clinical settings, as well as study how people are sensorially trained in these settings. CLICK HERE TO ACCESS SOUND FILES

Journal: Rhetoric of Health and Medicine
Published: 2019-04-16
DOI: 10.5744/rhm.2019.1001
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Topics: qualitative research multilingual writers