ABSTRACT
This chapter explores observing healthcare related contexts, both inside and outside of healthcare institutions, and walks through specific challenges (and suggests solutions) for observational research in these contexts. Healthcare settings can often be cramped, hectic, and tense with a lot of choices of who to follow and what to observe. Healthcare observations often include personal, emotional, and uncomfortable moments for research participants and ethnographers alike. Ethnographers need to have a certain skillset to navigate these contexts, and this chapter provides researchers direction on collecting good, observational data and doing so in a sensitive, non-obtrusive manner. The authors include stories from their fieldwork experiences to help illustrate the subjects covered. The chapter was written by Melinda Rea-Holloway and Steve Hagelman who have conducted ethnographies for healthcare companies for over 18 years.
