CONSENTING ADULTS ONLY - PATIENT EDUCATION IN THE DOCTORS SURGERY

This paper explores patient education in the general practice setting. It draws on a research study carried out in Nottinghamshire, UK, to c hallenge the view that doctors use their power in educational encounte rs to silence or dupe patients into accepting normative social pattern s and relationships. The study found that power appeared to work in a different and more subtle way. Patients chose to subject themselves to the controlling effects of a dominant patient educational discourse ( prevention) due to its wider cultural association with freedom, person al betterment and bodily health. The paper concludes by suggesting tha t challenges to reactionary political forces need to address how domin ant discourses work at the level of desire to seduce people into confo rmity.