Doctors, patients and practices. An ethnographic approach to medical consultations in HIV/AIDS treatment and care

Abstract

This paper describes and analyzes interactions ocurring in the course of clinical-infective consultations in the care of people with HIV/AIDS. The interactions lead to interpretative processes operating in the construction of the disease and the care experiences of patients. The analysis of the ways in which people look at each other, their gestures, words and silences allow us to understand some of the power relationships, knowledge subordination, incomprehension, asymmetries and feelings involved in the therapeutic relationships linked to HIV/AIDS treatment, as experienced by a group of patients and their physicians. This study is part of an ethnographic work carried out in a public hospital in Salvador de Bahía, Brazil between 2004 and 2006.