The Perspective of Medical Communication on the Biomedical Model of Practice and Patient Centeredness: A Review of the Language of Medical Case Presentation Genre

Abstract

This paper aimed to review studies offering the description of the language of medical case presentation genre from the standpoint of medical communication depicting the biomedical model of practice and patient centeredness. Evidential studies were searched and retrieved from different sources i.e. “Google search”, “Google scholar”, “Science Direct”, “Wiley Online Library”, “Pubmed”, “SAGE journals”, and “Elsevier publishing” from September, 2014 to September, 2017 using different key words search. First of all, the most relevant studies were reviewed entirely in the review paper. Thereafter, the criticism of patient centeredness on the biomedical model of practices which hamper the ethical dimensions of a patient’s care was presented. The discussion eventually established the more empowered role of patient in the healing process. Besides, this critical review also offered adequate practical implications of the biomedical model of practice based on the studies reviewed. Overall, attempt has been made to unveil the debate of biomedical model of practices and patient-centeredness in the medical communication. Additionally, various communicative functions of the linguistic forms of medical discourse were also reviewed in order to enrich the linguistic knowledge of researchers in the fields of medical education and applied linguistics. The researchers hope that this review paper would not only provide a base line to better understand the debate of biomedical model of practice and patient centeredness but also render the more implicit viewpoints of the medical discourse community inherent in the language of medical case presentation genre. In addition, it might tempt future researchers to come up with measurable evidences reflecting adequacy and inadequacy of the dominant biomedical model of practice and patient centeredness during the healing processes of the disordered biology. Finally, it also offered an open question to be solved whether medical pedagogy should inculcate the biomedical model of practice, or should neutralize and/or substitute it with the one which may empower patients.