The social organisation of chemotherapy treatment consultations

This paper analyses doctor-patient interaction at the outpatients consultat ions of a Medical Oncology Service in a Spanish public hospital. First, it introduces the cultural and institutional setting of the research. It then describes some details of the sequential organisation of the routine encoun ters between patients undertaking chemotherapy and their doctors. Three con ventionalised doctors' utterances ('How are you','How are you tolerating th e treatment', and 'The tests are fine') are shown to he crucial for assessm ent and treatment activities. It then discusses how the use of these tokens affects the dimension of casual/institutional talk, and doctor-patient int eractional asymmetry. The analysis pays special attention to the way in whi ch treatment decisions are grounded in and projected by the assessment acti vities in the encounter. The discussion considers how the interactive resou rces deployed in the consultation relate to the incorporation of patients' views in routine decisions.