Chinese patients’ unsolicited presentation of primary concerns
Through an observation of naturally-occurring medical openings in China, we show that problem solicitation is not
necessarily a routine practice in medical consultations. There are four common conversational slots in a Chinese medical opening
allowing an unsolicited problem presentation, featuring a common deep structure – a generic pre-sequence followed by the specific
base sequence of problem presentation. Three logically connected factors distinguishing Chinese medical openings from their
Western counterparts are identified to provide the rationale for the normality of unsolicited problem presentation in China. The
study enriches the understanding of culture-specificity in certain local structural organization of medical consultations, calls
for activity-specific reconsideration of medical authority and reveals further resemblance between medical consultations and
service encounters.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data and method
- 3.Findings and discussion
- 3.1Conversational slots for unsolicited presentation of primary concerns
- 3.1.1Self-initiation following a minimal response from the doctor
- 3.1.2Self-initiation after the doctor’s non-solicitation-oriented opening turn
- 3.1.3Self-initiation as silence-prefaced turn resumption
- 3.1.4Self-initiation as the opening turn
- 3.2Rationale behind unsolicited problem presentation in Chinese medical openings
- 3.2.1Optionality of Western routine opening tasks
- 3.2.2Problem presentation as the first projectable sequence
- 3.2.3The doctor’s availability as the go-ahead signal to problem presentation
- 3.3Sequence organization of unsolicited problem presentation
- 4.Conclusion
- Note
-
References