Repairing with a warm heart: How medical practitioners cultivate affective relationships with clients

Abstract

Healthcare providers are often advised to manage emotions to adhere to professional feeling rules and avoid deep affection for clients, but there are situations where this would not apply. We offer an atypical case of a cleft lip and palate (CLP) treatment program where affectionate medical provider-patient relationships are encouraged. Participant observation in a CLP department, in-depth interviews with the medical team, and public online content from the official WeChat account of the department showed that a meaningful bond was formed through a contextual concordance of moral consideration and professionalism across the organization. Medical practitioners have developed and justified such emotional work at the individual, professional, and organizational levels through three concordant micro-processes: developing the moral deservingness of the patient, instilling moral fulfillment into professionalism, and establishing moral consensus among medical professionals. This study enhances our current understanding of emotional work in healthcare by recognizing the moral consideration of patients and its influence on medical practices and by highlighting the complexities and dynamics of different feeling rules.