Qualitative researchers working within biomedicine lead a double life. Biomedical discourse silences other, interpretive, and contextually situated voices through various processes including peer review and grant agencies as reviewers demand simplified (quasi-) quantitative methods while demanding the elimination of qualitative ‘jargon’ and situated knowledge. However, since both of the authors of this paper have lived within medical discourse, this embedded doubleness must be pragmatically and critically examined with caution, respect, and integrity. Thus, in this paper we present three possible plateaus that explore doubleness and situatedness of those qualitative researchers conducting qualitative research in a biomedical context: (1) hierarchical nature of medicine, (2) the incongruity of the application of post-positivist or neo-positivist assumptions to qualitative research, and (3) the powerful phenomena of bias as a form of control and privilege.
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