I am a health communication scientist currently studying racially discordant patient-provider communication in the context of cancer care. My goal is to advance our understanding of the role identity negotiation, and explicit and implicit biases play in the decision making process of navigating health challenges. I employ various qualitative methodologies including content, textual, and conversational analysis by focuing on the content, structure and meaning of messages. Rhetorical criticism is one of my favorite methods. My book in progress, The AIDS Rhetoric of U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop offers a new important reading of Koop's response to the 1980's AIDS crisis. I critique Koop's speeches before medical school graduates, general audiences of predominantly White Americans, the Religious Right, African Americans, Native Americans, and his interactions with LGBTQ+ communities. I argue, that contrary to public opinion, Koop was not an ally of the communities most affected by AIDS. His allegiance was first and foremost to the medical profession.
The Dartmouth Institute Operations, Institute for Writing and Rhetoric
Drummond, D.K., Kaur-Gill, S., Murray, G.F., et. al (2022, August 18). Problematic integration: Racial discordance in end-of-life decision making. Health Communication [online] https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2022.2111631
Drummond, D. K. (2019). Shifting blame: C. Everett Koop's AIDS rhetoric of guilt and redemption. KB Journal of the Kenneth Burke Society, 14(1), https://kbjournal.org/drummond
Drummond, D. K. (2018). The decision: A creative autoethnographic account with poetry. Health Communication, 33(4), 507-509.
Marcus, E. N., Drummond, D. K., Dietz, N., & Kenya, S. (2013). Does a bite cause cancer? Misperceptions of breast cancer etiology among low-income urban women in Miami, FL. Southern Medical Journal, 106(12), 649-654.