engleski

The perception of power negotiation in doctor- patient encounters

The quality of medical service is constituted not only by the treatment but also by the communicative aspect of a medical encounter. Power differentials are construed and manifested in both, but we are particularly interested in the latter which is often seen as “the main ingredient in medical care” (Ong et al. 1995). The goal of the paper is to analyze the ways in which knowledge, authority and power are depicted, (re)produced, and evaluated on the basis of doctor-patient communication (Kuipers 1984). The overall aim of the study is to contribute to a broader discussion on the “structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control” (Wodak, 2001:2) in institutional medical contexts. A critical discourse analysis of in-depth interviews with twenty patients from Zagreb (Croatia) allows us to reconstruct power negotiation strategies that resulted from face- to-face medical encounters on which they report. They were particularly useful in understanding our informants’ stance towards discursive practices that construct and promote power differentials in such settings. While much of earlier work on this topic was based on the conversation analysis of naturally- occurring data, our analysis departs from patients’ narrations about their own experience as not all of discursive practices are, perceived as equally relevant by the patients. In the study we focus on those that are evaluated as meaningful by the patients themselves.

medical discourse, power, capital, Bourdieu

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