For Doctors‘ Eyes Only: Medical Records in Two Israeli Hospitals

Abstract’’Scientific‘‘ and ’’craft‘‘ representations of medicaldiagnosis can be regarded as complementary discursivesystems used by physicians in order to legitimate andmonopolize their professional power. This paperexamines the medical record as a context for theinterplay of these two discourses. During interviewsconducted with 78 Israeli physicians, 94% haverefused to give patients access to their medicalrecords. This refusal is discussed vis-à-vis a readingof the actual contents of medical records, which areshown to contain many errors, inconsistencies andambiguities. The paper concludes by offering analternative, anthropological model for medical recordsas fieldnotes.

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