The adolescent in the medical appointment: biomedical perceptions

Abstract

The text aims to discuss the specificities of the relation built during the medical appointment among the health professional, the adolescent and the relative who goes with him/her to the doctor. It aims to reflect on the meanings, expectations and tensions that are involved in this relation. This text is part of a postdoctoral qualitative research that focused on health professionals' discourses about the adolescent body and adolescence. These discourses show important aspects related to the way in which this relation and the individuals, specially the adolescent and the relative, are viewed. Semi-structured interviews and observation were used as research techniques in a health care service specialized in adolescence. The main objective of the article is to highlight, on the one hand, the health professional attempting to become a partner of the mother and, on the other hand, the adolescent's posture in relation to them. One of the main results refers to the importance of the adolescents' mother during the process of biomedical care.