More questions....

Writing Ethnographic Field Notes will help me tailor my field notes taking to my goals. The first time I went to clinic I did not take field notes, so I may have lost some opportunities to note my first impressions. The second week I went ahead and brought a notebook. I jotted notes while I was working in a cubicle, did a few more in my care before driving home, and then finished the notes in my dorm room. I have not written up the field notes yet, but I will try to do so more regularly. I think jotting notes while I am in the clinic will not be too much of a problem, and I can finish up most notes in the privacy of my car before heading home. As soon as I get back to school, my schedule should allow another hour or two for writing up my field notes. I am signed up to volunteer for 2 hours a week. Should I try to ramp that up to 3 hours a week? Or two sessions of 2 hours? Depending on my final topic, I may try to volunteer at different times in the day and in the week in order to maximize the different kinds of experiences. (If I would like to look at the health of community health practitioners, lunch time might be an interesting time to observe, for example.)

A quick foray into previous research conducted in the clinical setting has proven informative. One study investigated the power relation between patients and clinicians. Patients in this study were seen as “subjectified” and victims of “’mechanistic, ‘reductionistic’, and ‘ethnocentric’ practices of clinical medicine” (Butchart 1997). On a similar note, I might investigate the treatment of patients that belong to varying ages and socioeconomic groups that visit this clinic. Another study looked at ritualized events in the clinical setting (Lewin 2009) which could apply to some of the processes at the clinic in which I work. The “discursive construction of contraceptive use” was studied in fertility clinics (Hayter 2005). This inspires me to look at the language used in consultations and in the prescription of various medicines. Another study noted how “culture” were often reduced to being associated with “ethnicity, nationality, and language” of the patient (Kleinman). The clinic at which I have volunteered has a diverse staff and patient clientele, which might making looking at the conception of culture interesting in this community’s specific context. In terms of methods, several studies utilized participant observation, structured interviews (both group and individual) and unstructured interviews, including one that specifically looked at a clinic as social space and that studied the relationship between doctors and patients(Fortin 2008)