The Precision Medicine Initiative, Apple’s HealthKit, the FitBit—the booming digital health industry asserts that digital networks, tools, and the scientific endeavors they support will usher in a new era of medicine centered around “the voice of the patient.” But whose “voices” do such tools actually solicit? And through what perspective will those voices be heard? Digital health tools are marketed as neutral devices made to help users take responsibility for their health. Yet digital technologies are not neutral; they are developed from an existing set of assumptions about their potential users and contexts for use, and they reflect dominant ideologies of health, dis/ability, gender, and race. Using patient-networking websites, the Quantified Self, and online breast cancer narratives,  Communicative Biocapitalism examines the cultural, technological, economic, and rhetorical logics that shape the “voice of the patient” in digital health to identify how cultural understandings and social locations of race, gender, and disability shape whose voices are elicited and how they are interpreted.

Ten ICD recipients and family members share, in their own words, their unique journey of living with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), cardiac arrhythmia, and for some, sudden cardiac arrest. These personal stories represent a diverse collection of experiences from many perspectives such as age, gender, culture, and diagnoses. These ten authors offer advice, encouragement, and hope to others living with similar experiences. The book also includes educational information and resources regarding ICD’s and advice from a clinical psychologist who specializes in helping ICD recipients and family members with emotional and psychological issues related to ICD implantation and cardiac arrhythmia. The book is an educational and support resource for anyone who has been touched by cardiac illness or ICD implantation. It also serves well for healthcare providers as it offers insight and understanding into the patients and families perspective after ICD implantation.