Changing realities and entrenched norms in dialysis: A case study of power, knowledge, and communication in health care delivery
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2008
Publisher
Routledge
Abstract
In this chapter, I explore two macro-level trends in health care in order to demonstrate how they manifest themselves through mundane daily communication in a particular health-care setting. First, health-care communication norms developed based upon an acute care model and poorly serve health-care providers who face an ever-increasing need to manage ongoing treatment for people living with multiple chronic illnesses. Second, traditional professional disciplinary hierarchies and boundaries persist in the face of a changing workforce and enormous reliance on skilled but not formally educated paraprofessionals (e.g., technicians, nursing assistants) to provide the vast majority of hands-on patient care. By examining how these systemic trends play out on a micro level, this chapter proposes that the U.S. health-care system perpetuates a hegemonic power structure that makes superficial stylistic changes to adapt to consumer demands while reinscribing the norms of biomedical power.
Chapter of
Emerging perspectives in health communication: Meaning, culture, and power
Editor
M. Dutta
H. Zolle
Recommended Citation
Ellingson, L.L. (2008). Changing realities and entrenched norms in dialysis: A case study of power, knowledge, and communication in health care delivery. In M. Dutta & H. Zoller (Eds.), Emerging perspectives in health communication: Meaning, culture, and power (pp. 293-312). New York: Routledge.
