Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper centers on the work of Dr. Eric Cassell who was one of the first to catalog and consider linguistic themes in doctor patient communication. With a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1972, Dr. Cassell purchased recording equipment and hired a linguist and two support staff to handle the technical aspect of recording and cataloging the taping of actual office and hospital encounters between doctors and their patients. The recordings were made on reel to reel tape during the office hours of Dr. Cassell and five other colleagues between the years of 1974-1979 in New York City. He later used excerpts from these recordings to teach courses about communication to medical students at Cornell. There are approximately 400 reels of tape, comprising 1,000 hours of recording, With the assistance of Baylor Libraries, we have digitized 12 of the recordings and have used these in our classrooms with great success and to great acclaim by our premedical and prehealth students. We believe these recordings have tremendous significance for many reasons–linguistically, historically, culturally, and professionally. These recordings constitute a unique historical record of a time, place, and context. They are vivid examples of the way in which the medical profession has changed and a record of how the human experience of illness essentially remains the same.