Sociology Colloquium: Stefan Timmermans, UCLA, "The Science of the Deal: When Patients Refuse Medical Treatment"

One of the challenges for physicians in an era of patient-centered care is to close the deal for treatment. Physicians may have to say no when patients make inappropriate treatment requests (as in opioids for chronic pain), or insist on treatment when patients resist (as in vaccination refusal). In this talk, I examine how neurologists overcome resistance against medication recommendations for pediatric patients with epilepsy. Neurologists meet these grounds with three corresponding persuasion strategies ranging from pressuring, to coaxing, to accommodating. Even when physicians increasingly rely on persuasion to achieve patient buy-in, they preserve professional authority