Disclosing and responding to cancer “fears” during oncology interviews

Video-excerpts from routine oncology interviews are examined to reveal how patients demonstrate and doctors respond to “fears” about cancer. Vocally and visually, embodied impacts of dealing with dreaded consequences of cancer are apparent when addressing both good and potentially bad cancer news. E...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science & medicine (1982) 2005-02, Vol.60 (4), p.893-910
Main Authors: Beach, Wayne A., Easter, David W., Good, Jeffrey S., Pigeron, Elisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude to Health
Biological and medical sciences
Cancer
Communication
Conversation analysis
Conversational Analysis
Fear
Fear & phobias
Fear - psychology
Humans
Interviews
Interviews as Topic
Medical sciences
Miscellaneous
Neoplasms - psychology
Oncology
Oncology interviews
Oncology interviews Conversation analysis Video USA
Patients
Physician-Patient Relations
Practitioner Patient Relationship
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
United States of America
USA
Video
Videotape Recording
Videotape Recordings
Videotapes
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Summary:Video-excerpts from routine oncology interviews are examined to reveal how patients demonstrate and doctors respond to “fears” about cancer. Vocally and visually, embodied impacts of dealing with dreaded consequences of cancer are apparent when addressing both good and potentially bad cancer news. Even a “brush” with cancer can promote negative and ongoing impacts provoking unresolved illness dilemmas. We reveal how, in the midst of extending answers and initiating concerns, patients exhibit trepidations when volunteering narrative information about their medical history and experience of symptoms. In response, doctors are shown to acknowledge yet exhibit minimal receptiveness to patients’ lifeworld disclosures and demonstrations (e.g., redirecting attention away from patients’ concerns by offering “textbook” symptoms and related pursuits of biomedical agendas). Discussion focuses on interactional criteria for identifying “fears”, patients’ lay orientations to medical visits, and implications for refining educational workshops for oncologists.
ISSN:0277-9536
1873-5347
DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.06.031