The Ethnography of a Medical Setting: Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric

This article is a reflection on the analysis of ethnographic data gathered from a medical setting. On the basis of a rereading of field notes, the article identifies two modes of reading. The first, shared with many standard approaches to analysis, is based on the fragmentation of the text into categories and instances. The second seeks to recapture the narrative flow and order. It is suggested that the latter mode of reading illuminates the poetics of medical work.