ways of interacting:the standardization of …edge.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/islam...

Ways of interacting: The standardizationof communication in medical trainingGazi Islam and Michael Zyphur

A B S T R AC T This study explains the effects of medical institutionalization on the

framing of doctor–patient interviews. We draw on Weberian,

Habermasian, and Foucaultian perspectives to explain the ways that

occupational rationalities are embodied in doctor–patient en-

counters, and how these rationalities structure and are structured

by occupational conceptions of medical clients. We use the results

of participant-observer methods to demonstrate specific instances

of the ways in which organization–client interactions are simulated

in a standardized patient training programme. Finally, we discuss

findings with respect to our theoretical perspectives, showing how

each perspective contributes unique insights into understandings of

organizations and the communities they serve.

K E Y WO R D S communication � group communication � healthcareorganizations � mental health and therapy � organizationalculture � organizational theory

Organizational scholars have long studied the process of institutionalizationin social life, often examining the implications for communities involved inthe assimilation of institutional norms (e.g. Meyer & Scott, 1983; Scott etal., 2000; Zucker, 1988). It is generally agreed that institutionalizing socialrelations typically involves the re-working of logical frameworks for both theorganizations involved and their clients (e.g. Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Meyer& Scott, 1983). In the field of medicine, for example, much work has been

7 6 9

Human Relations

DOI: 10.1177/0018726707079201

Volume 60(5): 769–792

Copyright © 2007

The Tavistock Institute ®

SAGE Publications

Los Angeles, London,

New Delhi, Singapore

http://hum.sagepub.com

at SAGE Publications on September 22, 2015hum.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://hum.sagepub.com/

done to show how medical models have both contributed to clients’ well-being and framed the ways in which those involved have come to see theirbodies and minds (e.g. Conrad, 1992; Kleinman et al., 1978; Taussig, 1980).The medicalization of society (see Conrad, forthcoming; Zola, 1972) hasboth been heralded as a major feat of modern times, leading to the elim-ination of incalculable amounts of suffering, and criticized as a means ofexerting power over local communities whose traditional practices arecompromised by medicine, forcing researchers of medical occupations to finda balance between the apparent success of modern medicine and its socio-cultural effects (e.g. Colson & Selby, 1974). One point that is often over-looked, however, in discussions of medical institutions is that of how suchinstitutions themselves integrate new models of rationality, and how thesemodels are reconciled with the existing medical order.

The current study examines a newly required component in medicaleducation in the United States and abroad, the standardized patient (SP), asan example of how the medical community evolves to deal with clients. Weargue that the use of simulated clients emerged as a revision of traditionalmedical logic, in order to create a social link between the institution and theindividual that was felt to be missing in traditional service-providing tech-niques. We then use ethnographic field data to examine how this link createsnot only a sensitivity to two-sided communication, but also has implicationsfor power relations. Toward this end, we first describe the evolution of SPprogrammes, highlighting the ideological imperative for doctors to under-stand their patients through developing social skills. Second, we discuss theconcept of medicalization using ideas of institutional and communicativerationality as well as power and discourse, to give a complex picture of thesesocial skills as a tool for social control. We then present our field findings,giving concrete examples from a SP programme that demonstrates theprocesses we discuss. Finally, we show the implications of these findings forour understanding of institutions and the communities in which they function.

The history of the standardized patient

Doctor–patient communication patterns have become an increasinglyimportant part of the medical research agenda over the last 30 years (seeArora, 2003; Morrow et al., 1983; Ong et al., 1995; Roter & Hall, 1992).The study of doctor–patient communication was based on the recognitionthat patients have unique life-histories and perspectives (Zandbelt et al.,2006), and that taking these perspectives into account leads to improvedmedical outcomes (e.g. Arora, 2003). Although some studies in this area

Human Relations 60(5)7 7 0



emphasize the importance of communication in creating relationships, which could be considered a value in-itself (e.g. Roter & Hall, 1992), moststudies focus on increased efficacy of information gathering in diagnosticsituations, improved decision-making, and patient adherence to treatmentrecommendations (e.g. Ong et al., 1995).

The idea of using simulations of actual medical patients in the trainingof doctors was first introduced by Barrows and Abrahamson (1964), as away to couch physician communication assessment in terms of realisticclinical settings (Swartz & Colliver, 1996). Psychometrician Geoffry Normanlater coined the term ‘Standardized Patient’ to describe the technique, whichinvolved training actors to play the part of a patient with various medicalconditions or psychological issues (Wallace, 1997). As most communicationstudies in this area already focused almost entirely on doctor, rather thanpatient, behaviour (for a review, see Arora, 2003; however, see Anderson &Sharpe, 1991), it stands to reason that standardizing patients would providea controlled setting in which to assess doctors’ actions. Although theliterature cited above emphasized unique patient histories, SP programmes,by creating various patient profiles, attempted to provide a realistic coun-selling simulation for doctors-in-training.

The first training programme to incorporate SPs took place at theUniversity of Southern California in the 1960s, and drew widespread criti-cism for being ‘touchy-feely’, as it emphasized realistic interactions betweendoctors and SPs (Wallace, 1997). However, recent treatments of competencefor medical practitioners demand SP-based training by noting that perform-ance for medical personnel involves ‘a relational function – communicatingeffectively with patients and colleagues’ (Epstein & Hundert, 2002: 226). Inline with this definition of competence, the US Medical Licensing Exam-ination – the licensure test for physicians within the United States – in-corporated a test of interpersonal and other clinical skills in 2004, and theLiason Committee on Medical Education – the major accrediting body formedical schools within the United States and abroad – began requiringclinical skills training with SPs in 2005 to continue or obtain accreditation(Barzansky & Etzel, 2004).

According to many authors, SPs filled a niche in the medical occupationby providing an objective way to measure doctors’ performances in clinicalsetting without the biases of class-based evaluation, and at the same time,improving the training of medical students by adding a focus on inter-personal skills in dealing with patients (e.g. Razavi et al., 2000; Vu et al.,1992). In addition, however, Wallace (1997) suggests that the practice reflectsa growing recognition within the medical community that well-being is anoutcome of lifestyle patterns and not simply treatment of deviations from

Islam & Zyphur Ways of interacting 7 7 1



normal bodily functioning. From this perspective, understanding the story ofthe patient is a crucial part of medical education, with the implication thatsensitive practitioners must be able to locate the ‘lifeworlds’ (e.g. Schutz &Luckmann, 1973) of patients as a site of the institutional rationalities of themedical community.

From a social scientific standpoint, the history of SPs can thus be readas the recognition of a field of social life (the personal life of patients) that iscritically important to the success of institutional action, and involves bringinginto the institutional purview new areas of social life. What is interestingabout this movement is that, on the one hand, what was formerly considerednon-rational (i.e. human interaction) had to be integrated into a technicalfield, while on the other hand, in order for this to be achieved, interaction hadto be institutionally framed in a medically palatable way. In the followingsection, we outline the theoretical perspectives we use to understand the thesisthat standardized patients are a mechanism that integrates the lifeworlds ofindividuals into institutional practices. These practices, we argue later, arekeys to achieving the institutional goals of benefiting the patient and, at thesame time, legitimizing a technical scientific apparatus that regulates anddefines social life.

Theoretical approaches to medicalization

As a basis for theorizing the tension between human interaction and techni-cal standardization, we will track the evolution of a central line of thoughtin social theory, beginning with theories of rationality in modern society anddeveloping into communicative and power-centred views. We argue thatWeberian approaches to rationality, used by Habermas as a central piece inhis theory of communication, provide a starting point to a coherent traditionthat has been appropriated by social scientific studies of the medical field.We then describe a post-structuralist approach to power in discourse thatboth continues this tradition and highlights key difficulties in this approach.We turn now to each of these lines of thought.

Rationalization in medicine and the idea of communication skills

Institutional rationality

Beginning with Weber (1968, 1992), the idea that the modern age can becharacterized by the growing rationalization of society became an importantbasis for contemporary social science. Rationalization here refers to the




social process whereby segments of society are specialized according to tech-nical functions, which are differentiated and separated into bureaucraticinstitutions within a society (Freund, 1968). Modern society, according tothis view, is subject to increasing rationalization, culminating in the organiz-ation of life through the regulation of social relations, based on technicalexpertise, using standardized procedures to achieve specified goals (Elwell,1999; Freund, 1968). Ultimately, Weber argues, the progressive rational-ization of society leads to an ‘iron cage’, in which members of a societybecome constrained by the very structures that they have created.

The concept of rationalization is echoed in medical anthropologyliterature discussing the concept of medicalization, a growing paradigm inthe understanding of medical institutions since the 1970s (Conrad, 1992; fora review of early literature, see Conrad & Schneider, 1980). The concept ofmedicalization is summed up in the idea that medicine represents a socialdomain in which bodily processes are framed around rational/scientificprocesses. This standpoint, within the anthropology literature, is oftencontrasted with cultural views of the body as a space controlled by the indi-vidual, magic, or other social processes that are not rooted in scientificrationalism (e.g. Anderson, 1996). By integrating the body and mind into aworld governed by predictable laws, the scientific view forms the ground-work for technologies that are used to control bodily processes (e.g. neuro-chemical ‘imbalances’) and avert maladies by restoring bodily systems to‘normal’ functioning.

An important observation in the medicalization literature, stronglyrooted in Weber’s theory of modern institutionalism, is that the sphere ofactivity seen as rational increasingly encroaches upon spheres formerly seenas outside the domain of the rational (e.g. Kirmayer, 1992; Zola, 1983). Thisprocess is the basis for the ‘iron cage’, and has been used to explain organ-izational isomorphism between medical institutions (e.g. DiMaggio &Powell, 1983; Fennell, 1980), as well as the encroaching of medicalcategories on society as a whole (e.g. Illich, 1976). Illich described thisprocess as ‘the medicalization of life’, where increasingly individual tenden-cies become seen as ‘medical’ in nature, leading to the proliferation ofmedical categories. Examples of this process can be seen in the recently‘discovered’ maladies such as hyperactivity disorder (Conrad, 1975) andalcoholism (Schneider, 1978), as well as the medicalization of processes suchas childbirth (Schlenzka, 1999) and death (e.g. Shavelson, 1995).

More recent academic approaches have recognized the medicalcommunity’s attempt to integrate these critiques into its philosophy ofpatient care. Armstrong (2002), for example, discusses how the medicalcommunity has increasingly recognized social dynamics that underlie purely




technical practices, and has attempted to reconfigure its self image to fitconcerns of colonization. Originating from both internal critiques (Balint,1955) and the external study of medical practices by anthropologists andsociologists (e.g. Waitzkin, 1989), medicine began to realize the importanceof dealing with socio-emotional features of the doctor–patient interaction,thus calling into question a simplistic model of rationalization (Williams,2001; Williams & Calnan, 1996) to explain more contemporary medicalapproaches.

Medical interviewing and counselling thus differ from traditionalapproaches to medicalization in an important way. The latter processinvolves the use of a rationalizing discourse to categorize bodily processes.Medical counselling training, however, as we discuss later, takes diagnosticdiscourse itself as its object, attempting to use both rational and emotionaldiscourses to formulate a diagnosis. This diagnosis is always a part of arational medical framework. However, the recognition that the process ofdiagnosis is inherently discursive, and not purely formal/deductive, requiresa different approach than a pure Weberian rationalism.

Communicative rationality

In his two-volume opus, The theory of communicative action (Habermas,1981), Habermas used Weber’s institutional theory as a basis for a far-reaching theory of social interaction. Habermas builds on the insights ofinstitutional theory to discuss how political and economic structures beginto colonize the lifeworlds of individuals, providing institutional standardsand rules for action which are unquestioned by participants and, due to thesocial embeddedness of these institutions, are unquestionable. According toHabermas, modern thinkers from Kant onward have rightly emphasized theachievement of social progress through rational action, but have downplayedthe intersubjective consensus necessary for such a rationality to emerge(Flyvbjerg, 1998). As a consequence, the rational systems which emergedthrough modernism became blind to the discursive, communicative practicesthat constitute social truths.

Communication, in this conception, is considered as discourse whichis ‘oriented to achieving, sustaining, and reviewing consensus’ (Habermas,1981: 17). While communicative action is rational, this rationality is notconsidered constraining, but emancipating, forming the basis of personalexpression in a free society. Communicative rationality reflects the innervalues, emotions, and motivations of a community, and thus provides amutually respectful link between the individual and the social. In this way,communicative rationality is seen as key to a democratic society.




As we shall see, the philosophy of medical interviewing and counsellingseems to share a prima facie assumption of Habermasian theory, in theimportance of discursive practices in truth-seeking. The medical sociologyliterature has addressed how doctor–patient interviews provide a micro-setting for the larger project of medical rationalization (e.g. Fisher & Todd,1993; Mishler, 1984; Waitzkin, 1983, 1991). This literature places signifi-cance in what Conrad (1992) terms the ‘interactional level’ of medicalization.At this level, medicalization is something that occurs at the interface of doctorand patient, through their discussion and interpretation of facts. The medicalinterview is an arena in which consensus on the causes, processes and remediesof illness can be reached through dialogue, working directly on the lifeworldsof patients through discourse (Mishler, 1984). This literature has drawn onHabermas’s work in describing doctor–patient interviews (e.g. Greenhalgh et al., 2006; Mishler, 1984; Waitzkin, 1989).

The study of medical interaction has, in particular, drawn fromHabermas’s notion of communicative competence (Habermas, 1981), inpositing ideal formal conditions in achieving therapeutic goals throughcommunicative practice (e.g. Cassell, 1985; Labov & Fanshell, 1977).According to Habermas, communicative competence is based on the recog-nition that successful speech involves mastering not only the informationalor grammatical structure of speech, but the social structure as well, and thatcommunicative rationality occurs when the goal of mutual relatedness andunderstanding is embedded in the communicative act. Because this goalforms the basis for communicative acts, competence essentially involves anidealized relationship, referred to by Habermas as a universal pragmatics ofspeech (Habermas, 1979).

Intuitively, a notion of communicative competence underlies anyapproach to communication training that contrasts effective and ineffectivecommunication techniques. We argue that such techniques imply an idealspeech situation in which members exhibit, among other things, open-endedquestions, attentive silences, and avoiding sarcasm or interruptions (Zandbeltet al., 2006). While Habermas’s notion of communicative competence refersto ideal conditions of a communicative act whose end consists in democraticcommunion, in practice this involves the formulation of specific protocols orprocedural rules for achieving ideal results. The result is the stressing ofpatient interaction rules in achieving therapeutic goals (e.g. Hyde, 1986;Labov & Fanshell, 1977). Cassell, for example, stresses the importance ofsensitivity to paralinguistic cues, such as intonation and pitch, in makingdiagnoses (Cassell, 1985). However, medical communication is often framedas facilitating doctor influence over patients, who tend to be more compliantwhen, for example, doctors share more information (Ong et al., 1995). This




type of focus, in Habermasian terms, seems more aligned with strategic, ratherthan communicative, action (Habermas, 1981). As we shall see, the strategicuse of speech acts is an overt learning goal in the SP programme, and bothSPs and medical students are given strict rules of interaction in the conductof a medical encounter.

The above-mentioned emphasis on structured interactions introducesa power element into ‘open’ dialogue between doctors and patients, threat-ening to exert a repressive force that underlies the very open dialogue codifiedby these rules. Armstrong (1984), for example, argues that recent attemptsto understand the ‘patient’s view’ are themselves ways of exerting subtlepower while maintaining a veneer of sensitivity. Such criticisms, often basedon a view that power relations are inherent in language, give rise to aquestioning of the Habermasian point of view, that is, the view that liberat-ing rationality is possible in discourse within a social field. Such a view ofpower was used by post-structural thinkers (e.g. Foucault) as a powerfulcritique of Habermasian theory, and so it is to this critique that we now turn.

Communication and power relations

As some scholars have noted, one difficulty with rationalistic views ofdiscourse is that they overlook power dynamics inherent in communicativeforms (e.g. Crespi, 1987; Rorty, 1991). Such critiques hold that the searchfor diagnostic solutions through rational discourse falls prey to an assertionof consensus that becomes transformed into a binding principle (Nietzsche,1974), a critique that Foucault drew upon in formulating a history of scien-tific thought that exposed the Realpolitik of the rational scientific enterprise(e.g. Flyvbjerg, 1998). According to this critique, discourse is never free ofinterests, and it is the task of the scholar to uncover the ‘working of insti-tutions which appear to be neutral and independent’ (Chomsky & Foucault,1974: 171).

These perspectives rest on the idea that communication is inherentlypower-laden. In order to do justice to a Foucaultian view of power, however,it is necessary to clarify the notion of power being used, which differs fromtraditional notions of power as one-way domination. According to Foucault,power is a relational property within a discursive instance; it does not belongto anyone, but emerges in the ‘techne’ or practices of people in concreteinstances (Foucault, 1978). This is not to say that domination does not takeplace, but rather, that this domination exists within a field of relations thatdefines the actors involved. In the field of communication skills, for example,some work has been done analysing communication techniques (e.g. smiling,making eye contact), as Foucaultian techne, putting outside of the sphere of




negotiation the relational styles workers use in dealings with clients(Townley, 1993).

In such a view, the doctor–patient communication episode might beseen as a ritual where enactments of power-defining practices are broughttogether to define doctors as authoritative and patients as submissive. Bothdoctor and patient participate in this ritual discourse, which is constitutiveof the medical field (Foucault, 1972, 1998). Following this idea, some workhas been done in the field of medical anthropology using Foucaultianperspectives to examine power relationships in medicine (e.g. Kuipers,1989; Waitzkin, 1991). Armstrong’s (1984) view, mentioned above, uses the notion of a historically situated discourse to argue for a power-basedview of medical interactions, while Steedly (1988) discusses medicaldiscourse as centred around the institutional imperative to assert order. Thework of Howard Waitzkin (especially 1989, 1991) has gone from a highlyrationalist/Marxist critique of power in medical interviews to a view muchmore in line with Foucault, especially the ‘confessionalist’ perspective oninterviews in which the medical interview becomes a forum for institutionalsurveillance (e.g. Foucault, 1978). What is common here is a questioning ofthe historical purposes of rational truth-seeking, as well as a shift fromviewing rationality as an ideal state to a view which sees rationality as apractice or technology forming part of the normative structure of theinstitution of medicine (Kuipers, 1989). As we saw above, the institutional-ization of communication skills involves a similar movement from idealspeech competence to the regulation of specific speech practices. Forexample, Ong et al.’s (1995: 904) review of patient–doctor communicationis framed in terms of the ‘ingredients’ of functional relationships. BecauseFoucault focused on the historical development of social practices, it standsto reason that using a Foucaultian perspective allows us to theorize not onlythe ends or objectives of such programmes, but also the techne or practicesby which they are actualized, and to reflect on distortions that might occurin this process.

Summary

In the brief review above, we have attempted to show how institutionalunderstandings of medical interactions grew out of a process involving a con-ceptual model of doctors and patients’ social roles. We have attempted toargue that, using different theoretical perspectives, this model can be viewedas an immutable structural logic (e.g. Weber, 1968, 1992), as a discursivelogic (e.g. Habermas, 1981), or as an ideological practice (e.g. Foucault,1972, 1998). In the following section, we describe the findings from a




participant-observer study of one such training programme, in order toillustrate specific ways in which the ideas above are actualized in a medicalsetting.

Method

The setting for this study was a SP programme in the medical school of alarge US university. The programme was responsible for the training ofmedical students at varying levels of their education. While many of theabove theoretical points may be relevant for medical education moregenerally, as well as both the field of medicine and potentially other techni-cal fields that involve communication, we limited our study to the SPprogramme in particular. This is because the use of trained communication‘dummies’ involved in such a programme provides a unique way to resolvethe issue of communication standardization that merits analysis. Thus, whilelike all ethnography our results are meant to hold general lessons (e.g.Peacock, 1994), the empirical claims we make are limited to this local setting.

The SPs were hired employees of the programme, and ranged in tenurewith the programme from one month to 13 years. The job of the SPs was toact the role of a patient with a certain set of medical issues, ranging fromlifestyle issues, such as smoking or lack of exercise, to terminal illness, suchas cancer. The SPs were given detailed profiles of their roles, and were trainedto play the roles as would an actual patient with the specifications given (insome cases this included the application of face make-up and other theatri-cal props to enhance the ‘reality’ of an illness). These roles varied accordingto the particular student assessment, and ranged from a simple entranceinterview to more physically invasive bodily examinations and ethicallysensitive interviews such as bad news interviews, where the doctor-in-trainingeither had to inform the patient of terminal illness, or the terminal illness ofa loved one. SPs were matched to cases on the basis of physical similarity(e.g. age, gender, ethnicity) to the standardized case. In some cases, the SPswere allowed to give feedback to the medical students, and in others, aseparate facilitator would give feedback based on the interview. In somecases, no feedback was given.

The lead author took part in the programme as a SP, working in fourseparate training programmes over a space of approximately six months overspring/summer 2004. Participation in the sessions lasted approximately 10hours per week. Each programme began with a training session that lastedfrom one to three hours each, for a total of approximately 120 hours ofparticipation in the programme. Data collection took the following forms:




a) field notes taken throughout hiring and training phases; b) notes takenbetween interviews and during breaks, in the form of remembered data(collected immediately following the encounter, so as not to lose infor-mation): notes included informal talks with other SPs, observations beforeand after SP sessions, and group periods when SPs would gather and discussboth work and non-work related topics; c) as part of the SP role, eachemployee watched videos of other doctor–SP interviews that were recordedlive. Notes were taken throughout these encounters in parallel with the inter-views. While some SPs were observed more than once during these sessions,multiple viewings were always interviews with different medical students,ensuring that each video interview was a unique interaction. d) All writtenmaterials given out during training and before each new case, consisting ofinformation about the programme and descriptions of the different SP roles,were collected as data.

Several important nuances should be mentioned in order to clarify thelimits of our research question. First, since the situations under study werenot actual care situations, and did not involve actual patients, thedoctor–patient relationship being studied is in fact an institutionally simulateddoctor–patient relationship. Thus, the value of the study is in describing theideals of the communication situation promoted through a professionalsocialization mechanism, and the process of putting these ideals into practicein a structured setting. It is not a description of the effects of doctor–patientinterviews on doctors or patients, since, strictly speaking, there are neitherdoctors nor patients in this study. The virtue of this approach is that it presentsa pastiche of doctor–patient relationships, and highlights the pre-establishedprofessional identities that trainers struggle to make real for doctors-to-be.Our study attempts to explore the core values in a medical socializationprogramme specifically, and while ultimately it may inform our views aboutprocesses in medicine and indeed technical fields generally, we should stressthat such generalization, if informative, is also speculative.

We began the study with the general theoretical perspective discussedin the previous section, in order to ask the questions: do SP interviewsembody processes of medical rationalization? If so, is this rationalizationimposed bureaucratically, or does it emerge as a discursive product betweenthe parties involved? If such a discursive construction does in fact occur, canthe discourse be considered as occurring ‘democratically’, that is, on equalterms between civil actors, or is the discourse shot through with powerrelations that reflect institutional controls? Finally, we desired to know if themedical setting could provide unique answers to these questions that wouldnot only help us understand the site of our study, but might inform how weconceptualize these theoretical views themselves.




Results

Rationalization in the medical interview

In the spirit of Weberian rationalism, the patient encounter was found to beheavily formalized, in terms of the expected behavioural roles of the doctor-in-training and the SP, and in the contextual backdrop against which theseroles were enacted. In the following section, we describe how specificprocesses, both formal and informal, provide a conceptual frame in whichthe SP programme becomes an agent of professional formalization withregards to the patient encounter. We then describe how the outcomes of theencounter are submitted to formal processes of assessment and surveillancethat ensure the transfer of formalized ‘soft skills’ as an outcome of theprocess.

First, the role of the SP programme as a component of the medical fieldhas usually been discussed as a tool which allows psychometrically validevaluation (e.g. Colliver et al., 1994). However, as a part of professionaleducation, its role as a socializing agent cannot be understated. Both withregards to medical students and the SPs interviewed, we argue that theprogramme works to frame and promote institutional views of doctor andpatient roles. Below, we describe some of the main features of thisestablishment of roles.

The patient role

It’s about you. This is about you.(SP trainer)

Not surprisingly, the standardized patient programme promoted a stylizedand formal role for interview patients. In fact, the major goal of suchprogrammes is to formalize the assessment of doctor interviews by provid-ing medical students with an object of study that remains stable andobjective, so that students can be compared without the ‘noise’ introducedby natural variation in patient populations (Swartz & Colliver, 1996). As aresult, the doctor is introduced to the patient as an ‘ideal type’ (Weber, 1949)that requires a specified set of information gathering and social supportmodules in order to exhibit positive outcomes. Thus, inherent in the SPconcept is the idea of a bureaucratically established patient identity.

During SP training, it became obvious that this formalized identity wasstructured according to a standard narrative built in to each patient case. EachSP was urged during training to ‘build the scenario in your mind’, to fashionhis/her behaviour after what one would expect from the life-story of the case.




At times, this included extrapolating the standardized life-narrative beyondthe scope of the case, but always in line with what the role character ‘wouldhave done’. For example, in a situation where the SP case involved conflictwith the patient’s mother, SPs were told ‘you need to have a story for her’.Similarly, to answer questions not covered in the case, SPs were instructed to‘just try to tie it in so it makes sense’. When the written case outlined anaggressive and demanding patient, the SP was to make sure that thisdemeanour was consistent throughout the interview. While embodying the‘sense’ of the case, however, SPs were instructed to faithfully enact the writtencase given, and not to deviate from the cases under any circumstances. Thus,individual symptoms, personality types, and even social contexts of the role(all outlined in written form) were formalized in order to give a rational proto-type upon which the scientific gaze of the doctor-in-training could turn.

That the prototype of the SP allows a rationalized diagnosis of medicalconditions does not imply that the roles enacted by SPs are those of rationalindividuals. On the contrary, in many of the patient cases, the patient role isreplete with socially and emotionally complex factors that the students mustattempt to reconcile within their diagnostic model. For example, in one case,the progressive and terminal illness of ‘Andrew’ took place against thebackdrop of his quiet, withdrawn demeanour. As the simulated illnessprogressed, this social unease turned into depressive and suicidal ideation.As a result, the interviewer, in order to deal with the patient appropriately,needed to address Andrew’s loneliness and depression, and provide a realistic vision of hope for a person who had, in the words of the trainer,‘never made a big splash’.

It is easy to see why the cases were designed in this way: as a test ofinterpersonal skills, the doctors-in-training must be able to navigate theirway through a complicated web of personal issues, in order to achieve adiagnosis despite, and sometimes because of, their adeptness at dealing withthese factors. As such, the ability to formulate a proper medical applicationis dependent on the ability to use both factual and socio-emotional infor-mation in a way that is communicable to the patient, who is framed as anemotional and socially embedded being, not privy to the highly specializedprocedures of the doctor.

In fact, however, when this patient role becomes institutionallystandardized in a patient case, the role takes on a second function, that ofan ideal form to which the SP must aspire. Standardized patients within therole of ‘Andrew’, for example, were trained to intentionally deny the possi-bility of Andrew’s rational agency in the handling of his own illness, insteadrelying on advice-seeking behaviour, such as asking ‘what would you do,doc’? In practice sessions during the training, SPs who overly questioned the




authority of the doctor or who took charge of self-diagnosing discourse werecorrected with the rhetorical question, ‘is that what Andrew would reallydo?’ In addition, the SPs, when giving feedback, were specifically trained toonly give feedback about immediate emotions and perceptions (i.e. ‘whenyou said that, it made me feel . . .’), and avoid feedback that provides alterna-tive rational models for doctor behaviour (e.g. ‘I think it would be moreeffective if . . .’). As such, one could describe the patient role as a purifiedobject of study that provides the raw material needed for the doctor toproduce a scientific conclusion.

The doctor role

Unlike the SPs, the students whose job it was to simulate the doctor role inthe interview were not standardized per se, but were actual people in their‘true’ roles. In addition, since the interviews were often for assessmentpurposes, it was important that students be differentiated along a distri-bution of evaluative grades, in order to draw distinctions between students.Thus, while the patients in the interview were defined as homogeneous, thedoctors were there specifically to be individuated (more on this further in thearticle). However, this individuating of the medical students used a set ofassessment tools and expectations that were firmly rooted in an institutionalvision of an ideal role identity. In other words, the medical students wereevaluated according to specific written criteria (evaluation questionnairesranging from 20 to 80 questions), outside of which no positive or negativebehaviours could be used for assessment.

In following this standardization of assessment, part of the SP trainingincluded a test of their ability to successfully identify doctor behavioursincluded in the assessment. Examples of doctor discourse were given to berated by SPs, and their assessments were corrected until they fit the assess-ments given in the training materials. In this way, deviant cases (i.e. those inwhich norms are not properly embodied; Silverman, 2001) are pointed out tothe group and dealt with before the critical moment when the SPs will engagethe doctors-in-training. While the ostensive purpose of this procedure was topromote reliable measurement, it also ensures that the medical students bejudged according to identical behavioural criteria across interviews. In thisway, SPs were exhorted to give assessments of patient interviews in ways thatmatched the idealized criteria of the training programme. In the following, wedescribe some elements of these criteria.

First, the doctor role in the interview was concerned with fact-gathering about patient concerns. This fact-gathering, in order to be effective, was to be couched in an interpersonal style of openness that




allowed the standardized patient to divulge information comfortably.According to the SP trainers, ‘it is their job to give you opportunities’. Thedoctors-in-training were assessed on their fact-gathering effectiveness and onthese stylistic factors, which included ‘eye-contact’, ‘posture’, and ‘jargon-free language’. One of the main purposes of the SP interviews was to promotesuch interpersonal stylistics and to measure their application according tooperational criteria such as eye-contact.

At the same time, the interview was also taught as a kind of genre,directed by the medical students, whose structure was conventionalized intoparticular generic forms (cf. Orlikowski & Yates, 1994, on organizationalgenre). The questioning pattern of the doctors was assessed on its organiz-ation, which in turn, was assessed by its audience impact: ‘If you [the SP] areconfused, it [the interview] is not organized.’ Doctor–patient questions wereto begin as open queries, and become progressively more focused until aspecific cause was isolated from all possibilities, leading to an accurate diag-nosis. In those cases where a previously made diagnosis was to be explained,the doctor was to ‘frame it in terms of tests and evidence’, and to ‘alwaysfocus on action’. In addition, in no circumstances were patient emotions tobe ignored; rather, these emotions were to be used constructively to formu-late action plans, while drawn out emotional musings were to be under-played. Ultimately, SPs were informed that the doctor’s role was to makepatients ‘hope for the best, while preparing for the worst’.

While a more in-depth examination of the particular discursiveelements of this stylistic genre might be warranted, it is sufficient here tostress that the genre, in almost parodying fashion, reflects an enlightenmentview of scientific inquiry, in which the interview begins with a buzzingconfusion of unorganized data, and with the help of the insightful questionsof the scientist, this confusion is narrowed into a set of testable theses and,ultimately, an accurate diagnosis. Promoting the acknowledgement of inter-personal processes throughout this procedure, while central to the purportedgoal of the SP programme, gains legitimacy in the process mainly because:1) it prevents socio-emotional processes exhibited by the patient to becomeobstructions to the fact gathering; and 2) it allows particularly socio-emotional causes of illness (e.g. stress, unhealthy living habits, etc.) to enterthe interview as diagnosis-relevant information.

The communicative construction of the patient’s lifeworld

The previous discussion highlighted the structuredness of doctor–patientinteraction that is key to the SP interview process. We now discuss ways inwhich discourse in the SP programme works to negotiate rational norms, and




imposes rationality not only as an a priori scientific ideal, but as a socialpractice.

The first point that should be brought out is that the inclusion ofcommunication skills as a medical technique is itself a tempering of scientificrationality with ‘soft skills’ (Lazarus, 1988), and constitutes a shift in theway that medical practice is conceptualized (Kleinman, 1980). In the patientinterview, it is acknowledged that the only way to reach a sound medicalopinion is to discuss important issues with the patient. During SP training,this was phrased in the imperative ‘they’ve got to probe’. That is, SPs weretrained only to allow scientific discovery after an in-depth process ofdiscussion. Examples of this kind of probing included follow-up questionsand instigating discussions of matters that the patient might not like todiscuss, such as changing diet or smoking behaviour. The imperative to probewas framed as a key part of training doctors; however, we hold that it alsoreflects an epistemological shift in the conceptualization of medical practice,from that of pure observation to that of interactive truth discovery.

In line with this interactive perspective, a major focus was that ofremedying communicative pathologies on the part of the doctors-to-be. SPswere told to be understanding of doctors who ‘had no idea’ of patient inter-action skills, as many of them were ‘doing this for the first time’. Here, wesee a clear reflection of Habermas’s (1981) notion of remedying communi-cation pathologies as a way of reaching rational consensus. The instructionsto be patient with doctors who were overly formal is an implicit recognitionof the traditional difficulties of technical fields in dealing with socio-emotional complexities, and an attempt to remedy this difficulty. The ironyis that the urge to patience is given as an instruction within a standardizedsetting, such that while we may applaud the goal of patience, the notion ofimplementing patience as a technique seems to reproduce the very logic itattempts to soften.

A second way in which communication became a keystone for scientificdiagnosis was through the concept of contemplative stages of lifestyle change(Prochaska & DiClemente, 1992). Each SP was given written materials andtrained to understand illness consciousness as the outcome of four discretepatient stages, where the job of the doctor was to correctly identify the currentcontemplative stage of the patient and act accordingly. Within theprogramme, it was held that these stages in lifestyle change (i.e. smoking,stressful living, diet, etc.) determine the types of communicative approachesthat doctors must take. The first stage, precontemplation, describes a patientwho has little or no thought about changing, requiring an approach thatincludes awareness raising without excessive pressure to change. The con-templative stage follows, in which the patient is thinking about change, and




the interviewer must motivate through giving options for action and tellinginspirational success stories of change. The preparation stage occurs wherethe patient is ready to begin action, and should be helped in making plans.Finally, the maintenance stage involves reinforcing positive behaviour andteaching coping mechanisms to prevent relapse.

The assessment of contemplative stages was stressed as a key factor inenabling the doctor-in-training to adequately interact with the patient. Whilethe stages themselves were theoretically imposed on the conversation, theyamounted to speech rules (cf. Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969) that allowedstructured dialogue that could lead to consensus and, ultimately, patientacceptance of medical conclusions. Without a view of the doctor’s role as acommunicator, in addition to a scientific observer, the use of contemplativestages would be meaningless. The use of this technique reflects, in ouropinion, a view of rationality as a dialogic phenomenon which progressesalong a continuum of development, with the ultimate goal being theestablishment and maintenance of a medico-rational model.

Power relations in the discourse

In Habermas’s (1981) discussion of social interaction, it was stressed thatwithin civil institutions, a prerequisite for the emergence of communicativerationality was the ability for actors to communicate on equal footing,without power differentials and status norms that deflect true communi-cation. However, as discussed above, many scholars have critiqued this ideal,which reflects an enlightenment view of a society unrealistically stripped ofpower relations (e.g. Foucault, 1972).

For example, many scholars have pointed out that the ability to definesituations is inherently power-laden, allowing issues to be framed accordingto the mandates of a single party, despite the free discussion allowed withinthe spectrum of discourse (e.g. Chomsky, 1998; Foucault, 1972). This iscertainly the case within the patient interview, where throughout thecommunicative act, the diagnostic power remains with the doctor-in-training. While it is true that the discussion of causes and context in the inter-view take place in an interactive discussion between patient and doctor, it isthe doctor who has the final diagnostic authority.

In addition to the power of the doctor to define the modes of behaviour that best suit the patient (e.g. quitting smoking, eating healthyfood, etc.), there is clearly a motivation on the part of the doctors-in-trainingto shift the views of the patient to conform to those of the medicalcommunity, which are the ‘correct’ views. This was very evident fromdiscussions with interviewers post-interview, who mentioned, among other




things, that it was obvious that ‘of course you take your meds, of course youquit smoking’, that ‘the key question is whether they are ready to do some-thing different’ (emphasis added), and that ‘[patients] are in a differentworld. You have to get in their world’.

The expectation, discussed above, that doctors ‘had to probe’ gives asimilar picture of the relationship between doctors and patients embodied inthe patient interview. The patients are framed, in the words of one SP facili-tator, as from a ‘different world’, but in addition, it is the job of the doctorto overcome this difference, not through equal compromise and collaboration,but through an integration which (sensitively) colonizes the world of thepatient. While the doctor must be attentive to the contemplative stages of thepatient, these stages are not themselves negotiable, and must inevitably leadtoward the action and maintenance stage. Thus, within the SP interview, theHabermasian notion of power-based systems is ever present even in thecommunicative act.

Finally, the institutionalization of power relations through the one-sided integration of differences can be informative because it shows us thatpower exists through the medical dialogue and not only in the absence ofdialogue, but also because of the specific forms that the doctor/patient differ-ences take. For example, as previously discussed, SPs are specifically trainedto refrain from giving analytical or rational feedback, and are insteadsupposed to give feedback only in terms of perceptions and emotionalreactions. By framing feedback as perceptual/emotional and not cognitive,the SP is presumed to represent the everyday populace who is not well versedin technical medical reasoning. However, embedded within this roledichotomy is also a hierarchical framing of role identities, such that thecorrectness of the medical diagnosis is built into the doctor’s role, and thepatient, while crucial for success, is only important insofar as he/she can bemotivated to provide raw information and emotional readiness feedback.According to Erickson (1999: 113), ‘without a clear diagnosis, the full tech-nical apparatus of modern medicine cannot be brought to bear on the case,and this is aesthetically, intellectually, and morally unsatisfying forphysicians’. As such, the doctor role rests on an ‘aesthetic, intellectual, andmoral’ imperative to draw clear boundaries around the patient, who, as anormal citizen, is not capable of such self-defining activities.

This hierarchically distinct doctor identity is reflected in the followingsuggestion by trainers to a doctor-in-training: ‘Write [diet advice] down ona prescription pad and stick it on the fridge. That note will mean much morethan Aunt Sally’s advice’. Here we see how the power relation of the doctorto the patient becomes evident, by comparison to other non-doctors, in thiscase, the medically non-legitimized role of ‘Aunt Sally’.




As discussed above, a power-based approach that uses Foucault cannotsimply characterize the doctor role as oppressive of the everyday person, herereferred to as ‘Aunt Sally’. Rather, we must recognize that the establishmentof a medical training that teaches doctors that they are authoritative overand above everyday actors is here used as a way to better patient outcomes.This betterment takes into account the patient’s perspective in using per-suasive tactics that resonate with the patients, rather than formal doctor-directive to take one’s medicine. However, the explicit establishment ofhierarchy here also circumvents the ideal of rational communicative action,creating a typically Foucaultian mixture of care and control.

Discussion

The significance of the above findings rests upon the assumption that oneway to better understand the world of work is by examining occupationalfields in terms of the kinds of logic they promote, and the processes by whichthese logics emerge. Social scientific approaches to the medical field havetreated at great length the rational-scientific model as applied to bodilyprocesses, often from a perspective emphasizing dominion and social control(e.g. Kirmayer, 1992; Szasz, 1963; Zola, 1983). The current treatmentattempts to more closely examine how the rational-scientific model ispromoted within one setting in the medical field. While we do not claim thatthe standardization of medical practices is wholly or even primarily theoutcome of such training, the SP programme is one space in which the insti-tution of medicine meets the lifeworlds of non-medical experts, and that thisinterface is interesting because it deals not with the traditionally technicalelements of medical practice, but with the attempt to render technical thetraditionally humanistic area of interpersonal communication. Because thisprogramme has the function of training and assessment, we believe that itprovides an ideal setting for examining the propagation of institutionalstructures. In order to better examine these structures, we have attempted toview them from the lenses of various paradigms, each of which provides itsown insights into the process involved.

We believe that examining this issue using distinct but historicallyrelated paradigms provides several benefits for study. Institutional andcommunicative rationalism provide an interesting way to locate standard-ized patients in between ‘system’ and ‘lifeworld’ elements of medical social-ization (Habermas, 1981). In addition, the power-based view of discourseprovides a way to navigate between these dimensions of social life, recog-nizing the power relations in diagnostic interviewing while recognizing that




discourse, participation, and taking the patient perspective transform thispower relation from one of domination into one of co-constitution (Foucault,1978). Thus patients as subjective agents are allowed and encouraged toparticipate in the diagnostic process, but this participation is contingent uponthe systemic pre-definition of the subjects themselves.

More generally, studying the medical setting as a seat of institutional-ized power discourses is an ideal way to point out the application of thesetheories in modern life. In some respects, the medical diagnosis forms aquintessential prototype of the process of technical rationality, mediatingrelations between body, mind, and institution. The medical diagnosis canthus inform a general discussion of truth-seeking in modern institutions. Inthis way, the evolution of diagnostic techniques may mirror the evolution ofsocial ways of knowing, by questioning and improving techniques by whichdecisions about bodily processes are made. According to our findings, theprogramme reflects an awareness of the importance of communicativerationality, while underplaying the continuing marginalization of the patientthrough: 1) the framing of the patient as a visceral, non-rational being; and2) the simultaneous homogenization of patients and the individuation ofdoctors though the concept of a SP.

Finally, while our analysis has emphasized the power relations whichstructure counselling interviews, it is important to stress that this article isnot an argument against the use of standardized patient programmes specifi-cally, or communication skills programmes more generally. We believe thatthis caveat is essential because describing internal contradictions or mixedmessages in a social logic is often seen as an attempt to invalidate or under-mine this logic (e.g. Cuddon, 1991). This is not necessarily the case. It maybe, for example, that the medical profession is inherently pulled between thetechnical and the human sides of its practices, such that an SP programmemay be carving a precarious path between conflicting values. It may also bethat such distinctions are deeply ingrained in modern conceptions of subjectsin relation to their technological creations, such that one could not fairlyexpect the medical profession to shake off fundamental concepts that aremore generally rooted.

To make an abstract point more concrete, a trained doctor may havethe ability to define ailments in ways that patients do not, and thus asym-metrical power relations may result in benefits to the patients. Referring tothe earlier example, it is difficult to argue that ‘Aunt Sally’ should haveprimacy or even equality in the diagnostic dialogue when compared to alicensed physician. Thus, showing anti-democratic elements within a patientinterview is not to say that we must change the way that doctors interview,because perhaps democracy does not make sense in a diagnostic interview.However, the key point is that people do value deliberative democracy, even




in medical settings, and as this value grinds against the technical, non-negotiable formalism of medicine, interesting institutions arise that encodethese contradictions (Barley & Knight, 1992). This analysis is not meant tosubvert the definitional authority of doctors, but to point out these surpris-ing and innovative forms, as the development of doctor-education comes torecognize the complex nature of human illness. As these advances continue,it is the task of the social scientist to track how complex social forms ofpower and interaction develop from them.

The preceding point raises the need for a generalized examination ofthe ways in which occupational fields, through their technical emphases,frame relations between stakeholders and employees, and how these relationsin turn reinforce these emphases. Advances not only in medicine, but ineconomics and management among others, provide models which are ofteninstrumental in focus, elaborating new technologies that allow them to reachinstitutional goals. Without discounting the instrumental benefits of suchadvancements, it is important to recognize that they often depend on ideasabout how people interact, and in turn impose these ideas on the interactionsthemselves, reconstituting social orders with varying degrees of success. Theunderlying current of thought in this article is that understanding the inter-face between occupational logics and social interactions is key both to thesuccess of instrumental advancements and to the social scientific goal ofunderstanding society at large.

References

Anderson, L.A. & Sharpe, P.A. Improving patient and provider communications: Asynthesis and review of communication interventions. Patent Education and Counsel-ing, 1991, 17, 3324–32.

Anderson, R. Magic, science, and health: The aims and achievements of medical anthro-pology. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Armstrong, D. The patient’s view. Social Science & Medicine, 1984, 18, 737–44.Armstrong, D. A new history of identity: A sociology of medical knowledge. Basingstoke:

Palgrave, 2002.Arora, N.K. Interacting with cancer patients: The significance of physicians’ communi-

cation behavior. Social Science & Medicine, 2003, 57, 791–806.Austin, J.L. How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.Balint, M. The doctor, his patient and the illness. The Lancet, 1955, 265, 683–8.Barley, S.R. & Knight, D.B. Toward a cultural theory of stress complaints. Research in

Organizational Behavior, 1992, 14, 1–48.Barrows, H.S. & Abrahamson, S. The programmed patient: A technique for appraising

student performance in clinical neurology. Journal of Medical Education, 1964, 39,802–05.

Barzansky, B. & Etzel, S.I. Educational programs in US medical schools, 2003–2004.Journal of the American Medical Association, 2004, 292, 1025–31.

Cassell, E.J. Talking with patients. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.Chomsky, N. The common good. New York: Odonian Press, 1998.




Chomsky, N. & Foucault, M. Human nature: Justice versus power. In F. Elders (Ed.),Reflexive water: The basic concerns of mankind. London: Souvenir, 1974, p. 171.

Colliver, J.A., Marcy, M.L., Vu, N.V., Steward, D.E. & Robbs, R.S. Effects of using multiplestandardized patients to rate interpersonal and communication skills on intercasereliability. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 1994, 6, 45–8.

Colson, A.C. & Selby, K.E. Medical anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 1974,3, 245–62.

Conrad, P. The discovery of hyperkinesis: Notes on the medicalization of deviant behavior.Social Problems, 1975, 23, 12–21.

Conrad, P. Medicalization and social control. Annual Review of Sociology, 1992, 18, 209–32.Conrad, P. The medicalization of society, forthcoming.Conrad, P. & Schneider, J. Deviance and medicalization: From badness to sickness. St Louis,

MO: Mosby, 1980.Crespi, F. Social action and the ambivalence of communication: A critique of Habermas’s

theory. European Journal of Communication, 1987, 2, 415–25.Cuddon, J.A. A dictionary of literary terms and literary theory, 3rd edn. London: Blackwell,

1991.DiMaggio, P. & Powell, W.W. The Iron Cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collec-

tive rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 1983, 52, 147–60.Elwell, F.W. Industrializing America: Understanding contemporary society through

classical sociological analysis. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.Epstein, R.M. & Hundert, E.M. Defining and assessing professional competence. Journal

of the American Medical Association, 2002, 287, 226–35.Erickson, F. Appropriation of voice and presentation of self as a fellow physician: Aspects

of a discourse of self and apprenticeship in medicine. In S. Saragni & C. Roberts (Eds),Talk, work, and institutional order: Discourse in medical, mediation and managementsettings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 109–43.

Fennell, M.L. The effects of environmental characteristics on the structure of hospitalclusters. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1980, 25, 485–510.

Fisher, S. & Todd, A. The social organization of doctor–patient communication. Norwood,NJ: Ablex, 1993.

Flyvbjerg, B. Habermas and Foucault: Thinkers for civil society? The British Journal ofSociology, 1998, 49(2), 210–33.

Foucault, M. The archeology of knowledge and the discourse on language, trans. A. SheridanSmith. New York: Pantheon, 1972.

Foucault, M. The history of sexuality, vol 1. New York: Pantheon, 1978.Foucault, M. The will to knowledge: The history of sexuality, vol, 1., trans. R. Hurley.

London: Penguin Books, 1998.Freund, J. The sociology of Max Weber. New York: Vintage Books, 1968.Greenhalgh, T., Robb, N. & Scamber, G. Communicative action and strategic action in

primary health care: A Habermasian perspective. Social Science & Medicine, 2006, 63,1170–87.

Habermas, J. Communication and the evolution of society. Toronto: Beacon Press, 1979.Habermas, J. The theory of communicative action, vols 1 & 2, trans. T. McCarthy. Boston,

MA: Beacon Press, 1981.Hyde, M. Treating the patient as a person. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 1986, 72(4), 456–69.Illich, I. Medical nemesis. New York: Pantheon, 1976.Kirmayer, L.J. The body’s insistence on meaning: Metaphor as presentation and represen-

tation in illness experience. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1992, 6, 323–46.Kleinman, A., Eisenberg, L. & Good, B. Culture, illness and care: Clinical lessons from

anthropological and cross-cultural research. Annals of Internal Medicine, 1978, 88,251–8.

Kleinman, A. Patients and healers in the context of culture. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1980.




Kuipers, J.C. Medical discourse in anthropological context: Views of language and power.Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1989, 3(2), 99–123.

Labov, W. & Fanshell, D. Therapeutic discourse: Psychotherapy as convention. New York:Academic Press, 1977.

Lazarus, E.S. Theoretical considerations for the study of the doctor–patient relationship:Implications of a perinatal study. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1988, 1, 34–58.

Meyer, J.W. & Rowan, B. Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth andceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 1977, 83, 340–63.

Meyer, J.W. & Scott, W.R. Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality. BeverlyHills, CA: Sage, 1983.

Mishler, E. The discourse of medicine: Dialectics of medical interviews. Norwood, NJ:Ablex, 1984.

Morrow, G.R., Hoagland, A.C. & Carpenter, P.J. Improving physician–patient communi-cations in cancer treatment. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 1983, 1, 93–101.

Nietzsche, F.W. The gay science, trans. W. Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.Ong, L.M.L., DeHaes, J.C.J.M., Hoos, A.M. & Lammes, F.B. Doctor–patient communi-

cation: A review of the literature. Social Science & Medicine, 1995, 40, 903–18.Orlikowski, W.J. & Yates, J. Genre repertoire: The structuring of communicative practices

in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1994, 39, 541–74.Peacock, J.L. The anthropological lens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

(Originally published 1986.)Prochaska, J.O. & DiClemente, C.C. Stages of change in the modification of problem

behavior. In M. Hersen, R. Eisler & P.M. Miller (Eds), Progress in behavior modifi-cation. Sycamore, IL: Sycamore Publishing Company, 1992, pp. 184–218.

Razavi, D., Delvaux, N., Marchal, S., de Cock, M., Farvacques, C. & Slachmuylder, J.L.Testing health care professionals’ communication skills: The usefulness of highlyemotional standardized role-playing sessions with simulators. Psycho-Oncology, 2000,9, 293–302.

Rorty, R. Unger, Castoriadis, and the romance of a national future. In R. Rorty, Philo-sophical papers, vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Roter, D.L. & Hall, J.A. Doctors talking with patients, patients talking with doctors.Westport, CT: Auburn House, 1992.

Schlenzka, P.F. Safety of alternative approaches to childbirth. Unpublished dissertation,Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 1999.

Schneider, J.W. Deviant drinking as a disease: Deviant drinking as a social accomplishment.Social Problems, 1978, 25, 361–72.

Schutz, A. & Luckmann, T. The structures of the life-world. Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1973.

Scott, W.R., Ruef, M., Mendel, P.J. & Caronna, C.J. Institutional change and healthcareorganizations: From professional dominance to managed care. Chicago, IL: Universityof Chicago Press, 2000.

Searle, J. Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity, 1969.

Shavelson, L. A chosen death. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.Silverman, D. Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text, and inter-

action, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001.Steedly, M.M. Severing the bonds of love: A case study in soul loss. Social Science &

Medicine, 1988, 27, 841–56.Swartz, M. & Colliver, J. Using standardized patients for assessing clinical performance.

Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 1996, 63, 241–9.Szasz, T. Law, liberty and psychiatry. New York: Macmillan, 1963.Taussig, M. Reification and the consciousness of the patient. Social Science & Medicine,

1980, 14, 3–13.




Townley, B. Foucault, power/knowledge, and its relevance for human resource manage-ment. Academy of Management Review, 1993, 18, 518–45.

Vu, N.N., Barrows, H.S., Marcy, M.L., Verhulst, S.J., Colliver, J.A. & Travis, T. Six yearsof comprehensive, clinical, performance-based assessment using standardized patientsat the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. Academic Medicine, 1992, 67,42–50.

Waitzkin, H. The second sickness: Contradictions of capitalist health care. New York: TheFree Press, 1983.

Waitzkin, H. A critical theory of Medical Discourse: Ideology, social control, and theprocessing of social context in medical encounters. Journal of Health and SocialBehavior, 1989, 30, 220–39.

Waitzkin, H. The politics of medical encounters: How patients and doctors deal with socialproblems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.

Wallace, P. Following the threads of an innovation: The history of SPs in medical education.Caduceus, A Humanities Journal for Medicine and the Health Sciences, 1997, 13, 5–28.

Weber, M. The methodology of the social sciences. New York: The Free Press, 1949.Weber, M. Economy and society, vol. 1. New York: Bedminster Press, 1968.Weber, M. The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: Routledge, 1992.

(Originally published 1930.)Williams, S.J. Sociological imperialism and the profession of medicine revisited: Where are

we now? Sociology of Health and Illness, 2001, 23, 135–58.Williams, S.J. & Calnan, M. The ‘limits’ of medicalization? Modern medicine and the lay

populace in ‘late’ modernity. Social Science & Medicine, 1996, 42, 1609–20.Zandbelt, L.C., Smets, E.M.A., Oort, F.J., Godfried, M.H. & deHays, H.C.J.M. Determi-

nants of physicians’ patient-centered behavior in the medical specialist encounter. SocialScience & Medicine, 2006, 63, 899–910.

Zola, I. Medicine as an institution of social control. Sociological Review, 1972, 20,487–504.

Zola, I. Socio-medical inquiries. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1983.Zucker, L.G. Institutional patterns and organizations. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988.

Gazi Islam (BA, PhD) is currently an Assistant Professor in the Depart-ment of Administration at Ibmec São Paulo, Brazil, where he teachesleadership, negotiation and international business. His current researchinterests include social and organizational identity, group dynamics andcognition, and organizational culture. His research involves both quanti-tative and qualitative methodological approaches, as well as internationalperspectives on organizational behaviour.[E-mail: [email protected]]

Michael Zyphur (BA, MS, PhD) is currently an Associate Professor inthe Department of Management and Organization at the NationalUniversity of Singapore. His research interests include the biologicalbases of organizational behaviour, employee job performance and pay,and research methods. He currently teaches courses in organizationalbehaviour and leadership.[E-mail: [email protected]]




ways of interacting:the standardization of …edge.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/islam...

Documents