Discourse, Descriptions and Diagnoses: Reproducing Normal Medicine

Abstract

This paper deals with some specific aspects of medical students' acquisition of competence in contemporary medical discourse. It is focused on the transmission of clinical methods in the course of ``bedside teaching,'' and is based on data collected in a British medical school in the early 1970s. Many aspects of that work have been reported elsewhere (see Atkinson 1976, 1981a,b,c) and no attempt will be made to account for the totality of socialization in the medical school.1 The specific theme of this chapter is an examination of some of the strategies whereby students are coached to recognize and to describe the manifestations of ``disease.'' This is enacted in the course of small-group discussions at or near the patient's bedside and in exercises in history-taking and diagnosis.