ABSTRACT
This chapter explores listening work in general practitioner (GP) – patient encounters and considers relationship, the consequence of cumulative listening. It investigates pressures on these doctors in the organisation of listening work, and boundaries they negotiate in order to manage this work, both interpersonal and personal. The chapter also explores the pressures on each GP are imposed in part by the organisational boundaries they create in their work. The central structure in the working day of the average GP is the surgery, composed of consultations with patients or groups of patients. The format for each surgery is generally agreed between the partners, formally or informally, so that workload is shared. Longer consultation times allow patients to ask more questions and more fully express their own ideas. They also allow more discussion of lifestyle factors, with more screening and health promotion activity.
