RESUMO
In this study, we discuss how email consultations in general practice operate as a temporal technology, transforming working conditions and power relations between general practitioners (GPs) and patients. We draw on empirical material from Denmark in the form of a set of semi-structured interviews with 53 patients and 15 GPs, including two focus group discussions with 17 GPs. Our theoretical point of departure stems primarily from media theorist Sarah Sharma's (2014) concept of power-chronography, which describes how power is embedded in temporal relations and everyday life and secondarily from sociologist, Judy Wajcman's (2015) concept of multiple temporal landscapes. Patients and GPs calibrate their own time and attune their mutual time according to their expectations and ideas about the other party's time. The patient and the GP can both be viewed as 'time workers' and the email consultation as a digital technology fostering the recalibration of one person's time to that of another, requiring significant labour. The email consultation rearranges the GP-patient boundaries and thereby the power relations. Health institutions ought to consider whose time and labour is being 'saved' with digital systems.
Assuntos
Correio Eletrônico , Clínicos Gerais , Relações Médico-Paciente , Humanos , Clínicos Gerais/psicologia , Dinamarca , Feminino , Masculino , Idoso , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Grupos Focais , Entrevistas como Assunto , Fatores de Tempo , Medicina Geral , Encaminhamento e ConsultaRESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To analyse the reciprocal dynamics between patients' choice of place and how they experience video consultations (VCs) with the general practitioner. METHODS: Qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 27 Danish patients were conducted over a period of 9 months, from February to October 2020. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The analysis was guided by Nelly Oudshoorn's concept of technogeography of care. RESULTS: The following three themes were identified in the data: VC-home dynamics: balancing boundaries; VC-workplace dynamics: logistical considerations; and VC-body image dynamics: on-screen exposure. CONCLUSIONS: Taking human geography and science and technology studies as our analytical point of departure, we used the concept of technogeography of care and demonstrated how the reciprocal dynamics between patients' choice of place and how they experience VC made boundaries fluid and complex between different contexts and places, such as the home, the workplace and the clinic. These boundaries were negotiated differently by the patients depending on their need for privacy, convenience and support. Additionally, VC reconfigured patients' and general practitioners' roles, increasing patients' responsibility in securing an appropriate health care setting.