This study is part of a larger research project aimed at investigating physician-patient interactions in women's health. In this article, by looking at naturalistic data, which consists of 144 fully transcribed audio recordings of face-to-face interactions between gynecologists/obstetricians and female patients, we propose to: (1) present the theoretical and methodological approach of Conversation Analysis to health studies in Brazil; (2) discuss how Conversation Analysis can reveal how "macro" questions (e.g. National Policy for the Humanization of Healthcare) are (or are not) translated into interactional practices at the "micro" level and, thus, emphasize the issues of language and communication, only briefly discussed in the HumanizaSUS documents; and (3) analyze how a specific interactional phenomenon, "attribution" (i.e. voluntary explanations about the possible causes of their problems), might describe ordinary and concrete humanization practices in healthcare services.
Physician-Patient Relations; Women's Health; Humanization of Assistance
