Bringing together recent international research in the field of hospital communication and interaction, this book contextualises clinical-professional work by focusing on the rising intensity of information and communication practices in organisations generally, and in health care in particular. The contributions show how hospital work is performed and communicated, and what the hospital's extreme organisational complexity means for traditional approaches to discourse analysis, communication research and activity theory. Work is also presented from a group of clinician and health services researchers who have turned to using language-based and micro-sociological research methods. The result is a rich resource for students and scholars in both applied linguistics and management, interested in discourse analysis and professional communication. The book will also appeal to researchers and students in the field of health research more broadly, acquainting them with approaches to a detailed analysis of hospital-clinical interaction and communication.

'This thought-provoking book is a sophisticated compilation of research and provides excellent examples of ethnographic designs. It would be ideal as a text in academic programmes for professionals to develop the awareness of health care as a profoundly interdisciplinary activity.' - Lela M. Holden, Journal of Advanced Nursing

Foreword
Notes on Contributors
Tables and Figures
Communicating Hospital Work; R.Iedema
Institutional and Professional Orders of Ethics in the Discourse Practices of Research Recruitment in Oncology; E.Barton
The Communicative Functions of the Hospital Medical Chart; P.Hobbs
Governing the Operating Room List; R.Riley & E.Manias
Dialogues for Negotiating Priorities in Unplanned Emergency Surgery Queues; M.Lum & A.Fitzgerald
Personality Disorder in UK Mental Health Care: Language, Legitimation and the Psychodynamics of Organised Surveillance; B.J.Brown & P.Crawford
Re-negotiating Disjunctions in Inter-organisationally Provided Care; H.Kerosuo
Anaesthetic Talk in Surgical Encounters; C.Pope, M.Mort, D.Goodwin & A.Smith
Corridor Conversations: Clinical Communication in Casual Spaces; D.Long, R.Iedema & B.B.Lee
The Role of Signs and Representations in the Organisation of Medical Work: X-rays in Medical Problem Solving; P.Maseide
Why Don't Doctors Engage with the System?; C.Jorm, J.Travaglia & R.Iedema
Nursing Through Time and Space: Some Challenges to the Construct of Community of Practice; S.Candlin & C.N.Candlin

RICK IEDEMA is Professor in Organisational Communication and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. His books include Discourses of Post-Bureaucratic Organization (2003) and Identity Trouble (co-edited with Carmen Caldas Coulthard, 2007 forthcoming).