Vulnerable live patients, powerful dead patients: A textual analysis of doctor-patient relationships in popular Chinese medical dramas

Abstract

Using Framing Theory as a theoretical framework, this study examined depictions of patients and doctor-patient communication in Chinese medical dramas. The textual analysis had two major findings. First, Chinese medical dramas extended the definition of “patient” to include family members, an outcome of the impact of Confucian ethics. Second, doctor-patient communication was found to be two-fold: conversations during interventions were typically paternalistic, while conversations about non-medical issues exhibited consumeristic features. Doctors’ unshakable dominance during interventions resulted from patients’ lack of awareness of their rights as independent individuals, while doctors’ vulnerable position in medical disputes resulted from systemic deficits in the current legal system. Both trends challenged the typical doctor-patient relationships described by previous literature. Instead of introducing ordinary people’s reactions to rare or extreme situations, these shows were found to emphasize people’s unusual reactions to ordinary situations. Overall, Chinese media dramas defined and presented inherent problems in doctor-patient communication, elaborated the causes of most of these problems, and made moral judgments about these issues using vivid individual stories, but they did not attempt to offer solutions to these problems.