This thesis is about ethics in the dentist-patient relationships. Using cultural-historical activity theory and discourse analysis as theoretical and methodological frameworks, I investigate (a) how ethics emerges in dentists' discourse when they talk about dental-patient relationships; (b) how dentists deal with conflicts that emerge in their interaction with the patients; and (c) how a dental clinic is organized and works on a daily basis. I also discuss the implications of a theory of unknowability of actions for dentistry practice. My database is composed of dentists' narratives during videotaped interviews, and an ethnographic study in a private dental clinic in Canada. I conclude that ethics is embodied in the dentists' actions; that the development of phronesis helps dentists to solve conflicts in the workplace: and that the trajectory of the dental treatment is conducted in states through a complex division of labor and often in more than one activity system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/2126 |
| Date | 29 January 2010 |
| Creators | Ardenghi, Diego Machado |
| Contributors | Roth, Wolff-Michael |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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