The Construction Of Gender Identity Differences In The Dialogue Between Doctors Patients

As an important aspect of people's life, medical treatment is a process in which communication plays an essential role in building a good relationship between doctors and patients. A successful relationship between the two parties is the key to good treatment: better relationship leads to better treatment while a stressful one hinders good treatment result.Language use as a social phenomenon is greatly influenced by the gender of its users. In social linguistics, gender not only is a biological feature but also carries social significance, especially in language use. The four possible doctor-patient relationships based on gender, i.e., male doctor-male patient, male doctor– female patient, female doctor– male patient and female doctor– female patient, may lead to different treatment effects, because of difference in communication styles based on gender. A survey conducted to doctors and patient of both male and female at 211 Hospital in Harbin, Heilongjiang province and Chinese Medicine Hospital in Mingshui County showed that communication between male doctors and male patients is smooth and often a harmonious atmosphere is created, which leads to a good relationship that helps treatment; an even better relationship is often established between female doctors and female patients. Male doctors too often hold an over serious attitude towards their female patients,which makes them nervous, worsening the fear that females patients carry when and negatively influencing the treatment process. A smooth communication often goes on between a female doctor and a male patient, but a disrespectful attitude some male patients hold toward female doctors brings negative effect on treatment process.The result of the present survey on the part of communication discourse (including the addresses used, the length of treatment conversations, ways doctors employed to explain symptoms, etc.) during medical treatment also showed that a better relationship exists between doctors and patients of the same sex.