Focus on Methodology: Let's talk about discourse analysis for health professional education: What, why and how

Abstract

Much of healthcare is facilitated through interactive talk and writing: diagnosing,collaboratively making treatment decisions, conducting treatment, coordinating care, handing over care. For junior health professionals, learning the valued patterns of talk and writing—the discursive practices of healthcare—is part of becoming a health professional. Discourse analysis of texts, written and spoken, can make visible to health professional educators what the valued interactional patterns are and how junior members learn the discursive practices through interaction with more senior colleagues. It can also illuminate “troubles” in communication, such as barriers, power imbalances and misalignment...