There are clear differences between professional and lay perspectives. Doctors are trained to focus on the diagnosis and treatment of pathology, patients feel ill and want to feel they are valued as people, not simply as a vehicle for moving a pathological process around from place to place.

Stereotypes are just as common among doctors as they are among everyone else. Stereotypes interfere with seeing people as individuals with unique problems. You may have seen a hundred sore throats and be bored to death by them, but to the patient, it may be the first time it has happened and they may need personal care and reassurance.

Doctors still have higher social status than do most patients, and these affect the relative social power that each participant can exert. The patient is socially disadvantaged by the doctor because of this.

Expectations about cure, when control is all that is possible may lead to a clash about what outcomes are considered satisfactory. This is particularly the case when communication is poor.