The thesis addresses how socio-economic and institutional changes in the Danish health care sector interplay with ‘emotional labour’ in the work of doctors.

What is presented is an account of professional doctoring in highly dynamic domains of structure (bureaucracy; managerialism; audit; clinical guidelines) and emotions (expressions and demands of emotions) in managed cancer treatment regimes at a public hospital. The thesis contributes to a growing literature on emotions and organizations and emotions and health/medicine, trying to understand some of the problems concerning emotions in professional work and in changing organizational contexts.

The theoretical and analytical framework is constructed so it is capable of both asking questions to individuals in specific locations (e.g. Goffman, 1959; 1961; 1963) and of relating clinical medicine and the work of doctors in a cancer clinic to wider issues concerning interplay of structure and emotions in organizational contexts (e.g. Elias, 1939/2000; 1987). Motivated by the empirical interests the framework is situated within social theories of emotions or sociology of emotions, ranging from interactionist theory to poststructuralist approaches.

Methodologically, the thesis is ethnographically inspired and based on a 1½ year period of participant observation in a cancer department at a public hospital in Denmark. Interviews and document studies have been conducted as well.

Three major aspects are explored in the thesis’ analyses: the construction of managed cancer treatment regimes and its impact on medical practice, the demands and expressions of ‘empathic’ doctoring in patient-centred medicine and the extent to which the ‘medical persona’ has become challenged in new treatment regimes.