Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Overview of how physician-patient interaction influences kinds of treatment patients receive. Focus on routine primary care medical visits and study of how some of our most significant health-care epidemics are affected by communication that takes place in these everyday medical visits. Topics include how communication between clinicians and patients has changed over years, normative structure of medical visit, and how communication adds to series of public health problems currently faced. Students learn how to analyze actual interactions between physicians and patients with hands-on exercises to give them tools to examine these conversations. P/NP or letter grading.