The Medicalization of Communication: An Analysis of the Policies and Educational Practices Surrounding Patient and Physician Interaction

Abstract

This dissertation explores the medicalization domains through three studies to assert that communication exists in all facets of the patient- physician relationship. The first study is a policy analysis that examines the institutional domain through policies and educational standards created in the medical community that dictate the importance of communication. The second study examines medical students' level of clinical empathy using the Jefferson Scales of Empathy. The second study ties to the conceptual domain of the medicalization of communication, showing the creation of terminology (i.e., clinical empathy, clinical communication) helps uniquely identify and measure empathy through communication. The third study examines residents in practice and utilizes the interactional domain of communication needed to provide clinical outcomes by creating shared goals between patients and physicians. All three studies provided a comprehensive examination of policies and educational practices surrounding the patient-physician interaction and serve to build a model of the medicalization of communication through all three domains: institutional, conceptual, and interactional.