Abstract My research explores how discourse and the subjectivities of practitioners and patients are (re)created through the biomedical lens. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork done in New Jersey, which focuses on the importance of each group's roles and identities within both biomedical and alternative healing practices. This research examines the interactions between both patients and doctors and how these interactions shape identity through constructs such as power and knowledge. I specially...

Introduction [excerpt] Numerous studies have shown that, if given an option, female patients will choose to see a female physician rather than a male .... During the last twenty years, women physicians have been gaining acceptance in the previously all-male medical field of obstetrics and gynecology, and many female patients are switching to women doctors.... The purpose of this research study was to explore the origins of this phenomenon from the female patient's perspective, using subjects' personal...