Control in the Medical Consultation: Organizing Talk in a Situation where Co-Participants have Differential Competence

Abstract

Medical sociologists who suggest that some form of interactional control can be seen to operate in medical consultations frequently relate `control' to the doctor's use of strategies which resist challenges to his professional authority and prevent patients from increasing their influence on decisions affecting treatment and disposal. This paper argues that much of the interactional `work' discernable in the encounter is concerned less with the management of conflict than with accomplishing the production of orderly and topically relevant sequences of talk in a situation in which one co-participant has only limited competence in relating talk to a body of specialist knowledge.