Breast Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Breast Cancer, including details on symptoms, genetics, screening, treatment, information.

Risky business: medical discourse, breast cancer, and narrative.

Davis EM

Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Connecticut, USA.

This study explores the construction of risk and patient identity in medical discourse directed toward women with breast cancer. Eleven documents produced by the National Cancer Institute on the topic of breast cancer are studied using narrative analysis. A distinct patient narrative presents all women as at risk for breast cancer and creates an idealized patient identity that serves a prescriptive function for women. The narrative constructs an early-cancer experience where the patient is treatable and cancer is cured or controlled. There are no significant changes in the narrative after time.

Published 4 January 2008 in Qual Health Res, 18(1): 65-76.
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