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In:Dialogues of the Clinic: Encounters across medicine and beyond
Edited by Mariaelena Bartesaghi and Shelby Forbes
[Dialogue Studies 36] 2026
► pp. 204–230

Chapter 8
Representing patient voice in clinical decision making

 | Auburn University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This chapter explores patient voice as a rhetorical and epistemological feature of clinical reporting. Drawing on published case reports that include a “patient’s perspective,” the author specifically examines how practitioners and patients use language to define their individual subjectivity, position themselves in relation to other voices in the text, and characterize each other relative to shared interactions and decision-making processes. I suggest that the medical case report provides unique insight into dialogic aspects of clinical documentation, and as a site of inquiry, shows how patient voice encounters and interacts with the discourse of biomedicine. The chapter concludes by discussing implications for research, practice, and work that seeks to amplify patient voice in healthcare settings.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dialogism and the case report
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Data collection and reduction
  • 5.Analytical approach
  • 6.Analysis and findings
    • 6.1Voice of the practitioner
      • 6.1.1Defining self
      • 6.1.2Referencing professionals
      • 6.1.3Referencing patients
    • 6.2Voice of the patient
      • 6.2.1Defining self
      • 6.2.2Referencing professionals
      • 6.2.3Referencing interactions
    • 6.3Voices in dialogue
      • 6.3.1Representing decisions
      • 6.3.2Negotiating agency
      • 6.3.3Describing shared encounters
  • 7.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (53)
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