Discourse research has repeatedly dealt with interruptions as indicators of power and dominance, especially in the context of gender and status. But little research has used doctor—patient communication as a database. From a total of 576 medical interviews, 48 were selected for a qualitative context-bound in-depth analysis of interruptions and were evaluated statistically. Our findings support a differentiated interpretation: regardless of gender, physicians use more non-supportive interruptions than patients (p = 0.000); patients failed to interrupt physicians more frequently than vice versa (p = 0.034), even more so with senior physicians than with doctors-in-training (p = 0.003). Here, status seems to be the decisive variable. However, both female patients and female doctors produced more supportive interruptions than males (p = 0.013). Furthermore, contrary to intuition, we were able to show that interviews take longer the more physicians interrupt. The article closes with a critical discussion concerning the conjunction of qualitative and quantifying methods within discourse analysis.
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