Communication and Medical Practice: Social Relations in the Clinic - Hardcover

Silverman, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803981082 ISBN 13: 9780803981089

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1987

Synopsis

David Silverman provides a comprehensively researched and analytically sensitive account of how doctors and patients relate. Drawing on a wide range of original fieldwork from both the UK and elsewhere and from a variety of hospital settings, both privately and publicly funded, he demonstrates the complexity of medical interactions and the importance of their context.

Among the key themes of the book are: the way in which doctor-patient talk varies according to the trajectory of the patient′s medical career and the method of payment for treatment; the implicit problems in paediatric medicine in negotiating between the rights and responsibilities of children and their parents; and the difficulties intrinsic to reformist medical practice and patient-centred medicine

About this title

About the Author

David Silverman trained as a sociologist at the London School of Economics and the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught for 32 years at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is interested in conversation and discourse analysis and he has researched medical consultations and HIV-test counselling.

He is the author of Interpreting Qualitative Data (Seventh Edition, 2024) and A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research (Second Edition, 2013). He is also the editor of Qualitative Research (Sixth Edition, 2026) and the Sage series, Introducing Qualitative Methods. In recent years, he has offered short, hands-on workshops in qualitative research for research students and faculty at universities in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.

Now retired from full-time work, David aims to watch one hundred days of cricket a year. He also enjoys voluntary work in an old people’s home where he sings with residents with dementia and strokes.

Edition details

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803981082
• ISBN 13: 9780803981089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288