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En-Case-Ing The Patient: Disciplining Uncertainty In Medical Student Patient Presentations., Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md, Maya Ponte Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

The problem-oriented medical record is the widespread, standardized format for presenting and recording information about patients, which is taught to future physicians early in their medical training. Based on our participant obser- vation of medical training, we analyze the ways in which the patient presentation operates in medical training as a disciplinary technology that manages uncertainty in the clinical decision-making process. We uncover various mechanisms at work including the construction of a coherent narrative structure in which chaotic experiences are re-organized and re-interpreted to fit neatly in a linear plot with a predictable ending, the atomization of the patient as …