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Accounting practices in medical interviews1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Sue Fisher  and
Stephen B. Groce
Sue Fisher
Affiliation:
Sociology Department/Science in Society Program, Wesleyan University
Stephen B. Groce
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Western Kentucky University
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Abstract

As doctors and patients communicate during medical interactions they both offer accounts and respond to them. By treating these accounts as interactional strategies which link social structure to social interaction we display how the medical interview is characterized by a moment-to-moment battle that mirrors and largely sustains the institutional authority and status of doctors and the reality of genders. (Medicine, communication, accounting practices, interactional strategies, institutional authority, professional status, gender)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 225 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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