International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

The world's leading medical schools and journals officially recognize that what doctors and patients say to each other, and how they say it , dramatically affect the welfare of both patients and health-care organizations. Within the discipline of communication (→  Health Communication ) generally, and specifically within the sub-field of →  language and social interaction (LSI), the study of doctor–patient “talk” involves the study of all conduct-in-interaction between doctors and their patients. “Doctors” include all forms of formally institutionalized practitioners (e.g., medical doctor, acupuncturist), all specialties, and all levels of experience (e.g., residents). “Interaction” typically includes real-time, voice-to-voice or face-to-face encounters, including some mediated ones (e.g., telemedicine). Encounters in which participants are not immediately co-present (e.g., Internet-based forms of textual communication) are studied less frequently because participants do not labor under the standard affordances and norms of interaction. “Conduct” includes all forms of verbal and nonverbal (e.g., artifactual) communication. Doctor–patient talk is studied from a variety of LSI perspectives, including →  conversation analysis , discourse analysis, (socio)linguistics, and some types of ethnography. Although different perspectives are guided by different theories, methods, and proof-procedures, ... log in or subscribe to read full text