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Part of
A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare: Fostering inclusion and active participation through shared understanding
Edited by Sarah Bigi and Maria Grazia Rossi
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 338] 2023
► pp. 359–372

Chapter 15
On indicating and dealing with uncertainty in healthcare dialogues

Questions and findings for medical practice and teaching

| Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf
| Universität Hamburg
| Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf

In the context of diagnostic uncertainty moments of irritation can arise, which linguistically disguise uncertainty of the physicians or result in uncertainty on the patient’s side. We investigated the occurrence of uncertainty in history-taking encounters by reconstructing the dealing with uncertainty within the interaction process. The analysis is based on data from a simulation where medical students in the physician’s role interact with simulated patients. In the case study, our hermeneutical in-depth-analysis of one interaction process between a medical student and a patient reveals a certain communication pattern by the medical student resulting from an emerging dilemma which consists of a diagnostically unreasonable procedure but an offer of ‘at least something’ to the desperate patient.

Keywords: physician-patient communication, uncertainty, clinical reasoning
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Methods
  • 3.Results
    • The honest rejection
    • The battery
    • The renewal
    • The best possible way
  • 4.Discussion
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 17 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.338.15gar
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