ABSTRACT
Medical practice is performative, engaging roles and identities steeped in historical traditions, but also subject to reformulations. Modern medical work can be viewed as set in a tradition of oral recitation of epic poetry that dates to ancient, pre-Homeric times. Doctors learn standard scripts for recurring diseases related to specific patterns of symptom presentations. These are handed down from one generation of physicians to another through medical education. The key elements to such oral performance involve an interplay between scripted text/behaviour and improvisation; reliance on rhetorical devices designed to facilitate the art of memory (for example, repeated and visually arresting phrases), and style of delivery. While there are limits to the pre-Homeric analogy, this chapter reveals the ways in which medical education can be framed as engaged with performativity generally, and specifically with ‘impression management’ – how a doctor comes across to patients and colleagues.
