Five scholars who study the rhetoric of health and medicine share our diverse perspectives on the Ebola outbreak that began in West Africa in March 2014. Using a unique multi-vocal approach, we raise questions for future research on the rhetoric of vaccines and vaccination, such as the role of visualizations in risk perception, the individuation of blame, the role of genres in vaccine development, and the rhetorical presence of material conditions that promote disease transmission. Our overall goal is to initiate scholarly conversation about Ebola specifically and about outbreaks and vaccine development generally. Through our conversation, we explore subjects such as risk perception and data visualization, individuation of blame, genre systems, and the materiality of outbreaks. Together, our analyses suggest that vaccines, while a highly effective means of disease prevention, can also function rhetorically to draw attention away from the broad array of material and socioeconomic conditions that lead from a single infection to an outbreak. But by investigating what is revealed, what is concealed, who is blamed, and who is exonerated in discourses about vaccines and outbreaks, rhetoricians can contribute to the development of effective—and ethical—medical and communicative interventions.

Large institutions, like hospitals and juvenile mental health facilities, are often places where members from several different professions come to interact and negotiate ideological differences. This study explores the authorial identities of some of these members in the electronic charts of a large juvenile mental health facility. These charts portray their authors' ethos as that which is fluid and variable, craftily moving between the neutral observer status of scientific rhetoric and the expert blame-shifter of social work rhetoric. I argue that these multi-disciplinary identities are best understood when using a rhetorical frame of métis, a rarely studied rhetorical strategy.

This study explores the impact of institutionalized formulas in the creation of electronic mental health chart records. Through a qualitative analysis of client records obtained from a private organization that provides support and rehabilitation for at-risk youth, we explore the ways that structures imposed by the electronic charts limit cohesiveness and disrupt the communication of evaluative information. This disruption, which we argue is imposed by the format of the charts themselves and is reinforced by the institutional structures at work, is pivotal because it potentially impedes effective communication and understanding between the caregivers and providers who access this information.

This article examines medical treatment forms as boundary genres, drawing on genre and disciplinary studies theories to argue that medical forms represent a commingling of the business, science, and medical professions in ways that show evidence of tension and conflict between the disciplines.