medical discourse

Research article: How doctors view their health and professional practice: An appraisal analysis of medical discourse (Susana Gallardo a, Laura Ferrari, 2010) Purpose:
to explore how Latin American doctors view their health and the professional practice in relation with their health to determine how much Latin American doctors are aware of their problems and of the causes of those problems

Main Findings
Latin American doctors were very much aware of the problems and risks involved in practicing their profession but their attitudes differ, ranging from more subjective reactions of affect to more objective positions where there is clear moral condemnation of the health systems and the working environment.

The different systems of attitude on a scale of subjectivity

Affect (most subjective)

Judgment

Appreciation (least subjective)

 in all three systems negative values predominated. Only rarely did the doctors express happiness and satisfaction with the profession. Doctors made negative judgment of social esteem towards
neglect of their own health, social sanction in condemning, from an ethical point of view, the health care system, in general, and senior colleagues, in particular

From the point of view of engagement

When doctors regarded their work as hard and distressful, they showed a tendency to present the propositions as unproblematic But when they referred to the causes of doctors illness (which implied judgments of social esteem about themselves and their colleagues) they tended to acknowledge alternative positions

 When doctors referred to the risks of their profession, they showed an assumption of solidarity at work, and the colleague reader was construed as standing with the addresser. But when the causes of the problem were at stake, and social esteem was involved, addressers, assuming the existence of alternative positions, seemed to try to persuade their audiences to promote a change inthe situation.