Roberts2000
| Roberts2000 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Roberts2000 |
| Author(s) | Felicia Roberts |
| Title | The Interactional Construction of Asymmetry: The Medical Agenda as a Resource for Delaying Response to Patient Questions |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | Oncology, Physicians, Conversation, Social interaction, Breast cancer, Hairstyles, Ethnomethodology, Social structures, Magnetic storage, Analytics, EMCA, Medical EMCA |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Year | 2000 |
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| Month | jan |
| Journal | The Sociological Quarterly |
| Volume | 41 |
| Number | 1 |
| Pages | 151–170 |
| URL | |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2000.tb02370.x |
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Abstract
This study is based on transcriptions of twenty-one audiotaped encounters between patients with breast cancer and their oncologists. Using a conversation analytic approach, findings reveal how oncologists invoke a clinical agenda to postpone response to certain patient questions or to mark them retroactively as out of order. These deferral actions take the shape of pre-insert expansions in which the physician mentions an activity to be performed (e.g. the physical exam) prior to actually initiating the activity. Once this clinical exigency has been invoked, patients do not pursue their questions further. They thereby relinquish their request for information and accept that answers will be forthcoming. Thus, the oncologist uses the clinical agenda as a resource for managing the direction of the talk, and patients orient collaboratively to that agenda.
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