Background (103-030-02-2) Assaf and Adina
The doctor had found this postpartum patient to have mild anemia, and has now just heard how she is over-loaded with work at home.
The action
The doctor proceeds by outlining the two topics he’d like to discuss: the anemia and her work load at home. The patient interjects here that she would like him to prescribe her pills to regulate her period “for her husband”. The doctor responds that he’ll get back to that issue and progresses to discuss, in an orderly manner, the two topics he had selected.
Educational opportunities
- For discussion: What are the form and content of the cue relating to Chaya’s “expectation”, What was gained and what was lost by his choice not to respond immediately to the content of her cue?
- For discussion: How might the doctor have responded differently? Discuss the pros and cons of the response in your answer. {this could be a pencil- and- paper exercise]
- Later in the interview the doctor, after further prodding, returns to the issue of contraception, and agrees to prescribe The Pill. Is his response here a “missed cue” or a “postponed response”? What difference does it make? [ Editor’s note: The doctor’s promise to return to this issue later might make it a postponed response but the fact that he didn’t describe in words the issue that he was promising to return to later, and that he actually needed more prodding to deal with it later, tend to make her feel it was a “missed cue” A postponement would have been introduced by a statement more like this: “ I see that you’d be interested in starting some hormone treatment; I promise to leave time for that, but for now l’d prefer to …Is that OK?” See in this regard the general formula R3 NO2 Ad2. ]
