the physician-patient relationship: how it is represented in iranian national television

Background: in modern-day medicine, there is plenty of evidence-based communication studies implying that good physician-patient communication provides better diagnosis and treatment, as well as patient satisfaction and compliance with the therapeutic plan. medical educators who promote better communication to strengthen the physician-patient relationship believe that shared decision-making is the most favorable model after the era of paternalistic and consumeristic models as the dominant types of interpersonal communication between doctors and their patients. on the other hand, different media, especially medical dramas, if properly targeted, can be used as an educational tool for health workers and a cultural factor for the whole society to ameliorate the current difficulties in the physician-patient elationship. objectives: therefore, this study aimed to determine how the iranian national tv medical drama represents the physician-patient relationship. methods: we used a qualitative inquiry to analyze a medical drama about hospital affairs, named the nurses, which was produced by the iranian national television with the cooperation and sponsorship of iran’s ministry of health and broadcasted as a two-season television drama in 46 episodes during 2016 2017. in this regard, all aspects of physician-patient communication were analyzed based on the thematic deductive content analysis method. results: the study reviewed 46 out of 51 episodes. each sene that represented the physician-patient relationship was analyzed based on a developed checklist. the checklist was prepared based on a literature review, and its content validity was approved by the medical ethics experts. conclusions: the findings of this study showed that this medical drama paradoxically represented the paternalistic model of the physician-patient relationship that was inconsistent with the formal views of iranian authorities.