Doctor and Patient: medical interview MDP33 This page gives access to the DMT analysis of one dialogue, described in the table at the bottom of the page. Click on items to view the analysis.
Situation: A physician is interviewing an adult patient who has some symptoms.
Participants: Doctor and patient.
Acknowledgment: This dialogue is discussed in the book Mishler, Elliot G. (1984). The Discourse of Medicine: Dialectics of Medical Interviews. Norwood, NJ: Ablex., p. 84. Mischler provides a Conversational Analysis view and annotation of it, along with views of the medical field's interviewing practices and ways to improve them. It has been retyped, with altered representation of "hmmp" and related sounds, and an alternate representation of overlap.
Features of this dialogue: This dialogue, much more than most (except the courtroom dialogues) is impacted by two factors:
Even after the dramatic revelations concerning alcohol and drugs, the physician's first move in this excerpt is to establish additional "facts."
- The distinctive role, authority, style and concerns of the physician compare to the patient,
- The trained-in procedure (or ritual) for conducting such interactions.
Symbol PDF file Transcript, Symbolic and Graphic Analysis in Spreadsheet for download and manipulation MDP33 Click for pdf. Click for spreadsheet. Note that your browser can (probably) either view (by Click) or download each of these forms, possibly from the File menu.