ABSTRACT
The delivery of health care is a cooperative effort by physicians and patients whose success depends considerably on the communication exchange in medical consultations. As typically conceived by researchers, the communication between physician and patient has as its purpose the delivery of care by the physician through the exchange of information on illness symptoms and treatment directives to improve the health of the patient. However, in actual practice, delivering health care requires that the communication between physician and patient achieve several additional functions, including managing physician and patient images, negotiating the interpersonal relationship, and altering patient behavior.
