| This study examines conversations between doctors and patients in consultation rooms of Chinese hospitals. The critical discourse analysis CDA framework adopted in this study views people's conversation behavior as constituted by and constitutive of power, asymmetry, and institution (Foucault 1980; Fairclough, 1995; Thornborrow, 2002); and conversation analysis CA is used in the data description (West, 1983; Frankel, 1984, 1990; ten Have, 1991). Audio recordings of doctor-patient interviews were collected from Tongji Hospital and Xinzhou District People's Hospital in Wuhan, ethnographic interviews with five doctors and a questionnaire study with over sixty patients were used for triangulation, all assisted by the author's intensive three-week full participant observation in the site. The study finds that doctor-patient interaction in the Chinese medical institution features a salient asymmetrical pattern, where doctors exercise their legitimate power and authority as: skipping the normal opening and closing of conversation rituals, using over-proportionate questioning, 'relentlessly' and frequently interrupting the patients' narrating, and almost total controlling of conversation topics. In reciprocity to this doctors' dominance, the patients are seen as frequent in acclimating to these seemingly oppressive behavior of their doctors by acceptance or collaboration. The imbalance of power relations between doctors and patients are found inherent in their institutional roles. Furthermore, such asymmetry does not break down the flow of doctor-patient communication to the extent of conflicts and noncompliance, due to a good consensus on the estimate of a doctor's behavior as motivated by trustworthy benevolence and professional efficiency. It concludes that such benign nature of the asymmetrical interaction is required of internalized medical institutions in today's China.
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