I think discourse analysis is the analysis of different forms of communication and the meaning behind these social interactions, it is looking at what is said and how its said to get a better idea of meanings and motives.
This article discusses the effect of having additional medical personal to a consultation. The researchers tried to see how the presence of additional medical personnel in the consultation alters doctors’ responses to patients’ questions, their management of patient-initiated topics, and their use of invitations to ask questions. They also compared the different interaction style when the additional was a medical student or a doctor. The study was conducted by firstly consenting the participate in the study and then audio-recording of the consultation, looking for certain criteria (ie number of invitations to ask a question).
What is very interesting in this study is to see how doctors and patients conduct themselves differently when other doctors or students are around.
1)The study points out that when a student is present, the doctor invited the patient to talk half as frequently compared to having no additional person there. And when another doctor was present 1/5 of the invitations were offered. This shows that doctors are influenced by their surroundings and less likely to offer patients centred care.
2)The patients were also a lot less likely to initiate a topic when students were there (half the amount) or other medical personal there (1/6 of the amount). This is intriguing as it shows even though the patient consents to the additional personnel they are not comfortable enough to take lead in the consultation or express their agenda.
Bristowe K, Patrick PL. Do too many cooks spoil the broth? The effect of observers on doctor-patient interaction. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2012. MEDICAL EDUCATION 2012; 46: 785–794