Interrupting Patients in Healthcare Settings: What is Being Interrupted?

Area of Science:

• Medical Sociology
• Philosophy of Medicine
• Communication in Healthcare

Background:

• Scientific literature since the 1980s has quantified patient interruptions by healthcare professionals.
• This research, while numerical, reveals underlying authorial biases and preferences regarding patient speech.
• Analysis of this literature uncovers implicit arguments for allowing patients to speak without interruption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the discourse surrounding patient interruptions in medical literature.
• To explore the philosophical concept of "interruption" within healthcare interactions.
• To critique the biomedical model's limitations in valuing patient narratives.

Main Methods:

• Discourse analysis of scientific literature on patient interruptions.
• Philosophical inquiry into the concept of "interruption."
• Review of alternative medical models and anthropological perspectives on illness narratives.

Main Results:

• The analyzed literature implicitly advocates for uninterrupted patient speech, challenging the "overly-loquacious patient" myth.
• Interruptions are often driven by a biomedical logic prioritizing tissue-damage diagnosis over patient experience.
• This practice is framed as a power dynamic inherent in the biomedical approach.

Conclusions:

• Interrupting patients is a mechanism to assert power within a biomedical framework that devalues non-diagnostic speech.
• Alternative models like the biopsychosocial model and narrative medicine offer stronger justifications for allowing patients to speak freely.
• Understanding illness narratives is crucial for a more patient-centered approach to healthcare.