A doctor enters the exam room and has the following conversation with his patient. Doctor: “How are you feeling today?” Patient: “I am ok, but I have some pain in my ear.” Doctor: “Let me take a look at it. It looks like you have an ear infection.” Patient: “What can I do about it?” Doctor: “We will put you on antibiotics to treat it.” Which best describes what happened in the conversation? The doctor was the sender, and the patient was the receiver. The doctor was the receiver, and the patient was the sender. The patient was both a sender and a receiver. The doctor was neither a sender nor a receiver.

According to the theory of communication a sender is someone who sends a message, it can be a person, a group, a company, an institution. On the other hand, the receiver is the one who intended the message, it can be a person, a group or even an animal, like a dog, for example.

In the case of the question above, the patient shows himself as a sender and as a receiver in different moments of the dialogue, the same happens with the doctor. This is because in this dialogue both receive messages, but both also direct messages to each other.