Digital technology in medical visits: a critical review of its impact on doctor-patient communication.

With the rapid advances of digital technology, computer-mediated medical practices are becoming increasingly dominant in medical visits. However, the question of how to ensure effective, patient-centered communication in this transition remains crucial. In this mini-review, we explore this topic by reviewing quantitative and survey-based studies, as well as discursive-interactional studies that focus on the visit as a communicative event.

Becoming a Psychotherapist: Learning Practices and Identity Construction Across Communities of Practice.

Within a perspective that views groups as communities of practice and sites of construction of knowledge, learning, and identity, this article aims to explore the contribution that participation in different groups over the course of one's life provides to the development of the professional practices of psychotherapist trainees enrolled in the C.O.I.

"Awareness to touch": A qualitative study of nurses' perceptions of interpersonal professional contact after an experiential training.

Aim: This study aimed to explore nurses' perceptions of touch in their professional practice and how these perceptions were articulated in discourse, among participants who attended a specific training on touch and those who did not.

Background: Touch is an essential part of nursing practice. Research showed that the use of touch influences patients' general well-being, improving a sense of presence and infusing security and encouragement.

Being : A Multimodal Analysis of the Contribution of the Patient's Companion to "First Time" Oncological Visits.

Companions to medical visits have been alternatively viewed as members who "support" or "inhibit" and "interfere" with the doctor-patient interaction. One way of looking at the companions' contribution to medical visits is by coding roles or functions of their communicative behavior. Our paper aims at reconsidering these findings and analyzing how the companion participation is a local and sequential accomplishment, changing from time to time in the consultation.

Social support for breast cancer patients in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Previous research indicates that social support is beneficial to cancer patients in adjusting to the stress of the disease. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 36 semi-structured interviews, this article explores sources and types of social support in Arab-Palestinian women with breast cancer. Results show that members of the immediate family, husbands in particular, are reported to be the most supportive social sources.

A room of one's own: Moments of mutual disengagement between doctor and patient in the oncology visit.

Objective: This paper examines a previously neglected phenomenon in doctor-patient interaction studies, i.e. the achievement of mutual disengagement-a specific state of coordination, in which participants suspend reciprocal gaze and turn into separate axes of involvement.

Presenting treatment options in breast cancer consultations: Advice and consent in Italian medical care.

Variety, complexity and uncertainty in the therapy outcomes of cancer illness make the treatment recommendation (TR) in oncology a "monumentally difficult task". Previous studies have distinguished unilateral and bilateral formats of treatment recommendations, accordingly to whether, or to what extent, the patient's perspective is included in the consideration of therapeutic options. Others have also shown how the oncologists' presentation of therapeutic options varied accordingly to the severity of the diagnosis and the availability of alternatives.

Structuring times and activities in the oncology visit.

In this paper we examine how doctor and patient coordinate actions in interaction towards the smooth accomplishment of the medical visit. Such coordination entails primarily the management of time and praxis, i.e.

Managing risk and patient involvement in choosing treatment for cancer: an analysis of two communication practices.

Drawing on conversation analyses of oncology consultations collected in Italy, the article examines the communication practices used to recommend treatments. We found that the oncologist formulates the treatment recommendation (TR) for high-risk patients in terms of a 'mandatory' choice and for low-risk patients as an 'optional' type of decision. In the first case the doctor presses to reach a decision during the visit while in the second case leaves the decision open-ended.

Communicating Uncertain News in Cancer Consultations.

In cancer communication, most of the literature is in the realm of delivering bad news while much less attention has been given to the communication of uncertain news around the diagnosis and the possible outcomes of the illness. Drawing on video-recorded cancer consultations collected in two Italian hospitals, this article analyzes three communication practices used by oncologists to interactionally manage the uncertainty during the visit: alternating between uncertain bad news and certain good news, anticipating scenarios, and guessing test results. Both diagnostic and personal uncertainties are not hidden to the patient, yet they are reduced through these practices.

Formulating treatment recommendation as a logical consequence of the diagnosis in post-surgical oncological visits.

Objective: the article analyzes how a doctor delivers diagnoses and recommends treatment in a set of post-surgical oncological visits. The pattern of activities are explored in two different cases: when all diagnostic information is available, and when information is still missing.

Methods: The data consist of 12 video-recorded visits of breast cancer patients to a senior oncologist.