Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
if one had a white coat
one would adopt the doctor's role much more obviously.
SUPERVISOR:
Kind of more authority …
STUDENT:
No
that one acts more as a professional than as a fellow human being
rather because with a doctor one can talk quite frankly from the
beginning
one can talk with a different trust the fi rst time one meets them.
This student apparently draws on the communicative ideology and models
of professional doctoring as being about virtues like frankness and trust, in
contrast to the moral and psychological properties of ordinary men.
Identity transformation
Learning to talk professionally is not only about learning certain skills, but
also about changed self-perception, or rather, a transformation of identity.
Learning to talk professionally is learning to talk
as if
one is a certain kind of
professional person, in this case a medical doctor. The voice has to become
that of a doctor. But it is also necessary to learn to perceive the patient and
what he or she says in terms of a patient speaking to (or with) a doctor. That
is, it is not only learning to speak that is central to the identity transformation,
but also learning to interpret the action of the patient in professional terms,
and then respond as a professional.
In order to talk professionally it is important for the students to be able
to detach the actual voices used in the medical interview from their private
voices (Example 3).
Example 3
STUDENT:
You have to be able to say to a patient
'What a pity!'
and sound convincing, but if he [the patient] says
'I'll probably have to become a disability pensioner'
then I will have trouble saying 'What a pity!' convincingly.
Learning to use
empathy
as an interactive instrument is perceived as
especially diffi cult by many students. The reason for this is probably that it
includes a mental attitude that most of the students usually display towards
close friends or other people with whom they have personal relationships.
Adopting a professional identity that includes
empathic feedback
towards
persons with whom they are otherwise unacquainted has to be tested and
integrated in their own ways of speaking and being.
