Medical Education Reform and Medical Dramas
Through Cultivation and Social Cognitive Theories, health communication researchers have gained a clearer understanding of how patient expectations are shaped by medical dramas. As a result of this influence, analyzing scripted medical dramas for elements of universal skills and guidelines in physician-patient communication instruments could provide a clearer picture of what patients expect to experience during medical encounters. While several studies have analyzed aspects of medical dramas including frequency of diagnoses, survival rates, and character demographics (e.g., Hestroni, 2009; Ye & Ward, 2010), none of these has examined the way in which modern medical dramas portray medical education reform efforts aimed at improving physician-patient communication. Therefore, the current study seeks to discover how physician-patient communication reform is reflected in modern medical drama