Expression of patients' and providers' identities during the medical interview.

We apply the Communication Theory of Identity to investigate how patients display their ethnic identities during intercultural patient-provider interactions. Ethnic identity displays play a large part in reflecting patients' and providers' assumptions about the other, as well as their communicative needs. We collected paper-and-pencil responses from a convenience sample of providers and their patients, and conducted a constant comparative analysis of their open-ended reports of a recent intercultural medical interview.