Health care for women: I. Current social and behavioral issues. The medical interview. Problems in communication

Medicine is a middle-class phenomenon. The medical interview, an encounter often shrouded with emotion for the patient, may be carried on in jargon with which the patient is not familiar. Major breakdowns in communication exist when doctors cannot or will not speak the patient's language, or vice versa. Recent research examines how much patients are led to feel that they must communicate in the doctor's language, as well as the extent of miscommunication.