The Emergent Medicalised Heart of the Health Care Professional

This study explores emotional quality displayed by health care professionals (HCPs) and the factors that underpin this quality during clinical encounters in primary health care in Malta. Healthcare has been dominated by the medical model; however, with quality of care becoming upfront on people's agenda, two issues are under the microscope. The first is concerned with the contribution of the medical model and the second with the relationship between the service user (SU) and the HCP. This means that HCPs are expected to follow a hypothetical-deductive approach based on their technical knowledge whilst simultaneously including a line of enquiry that optimizes the quality of emotional display to frame their intervention.