Social Construction Of Medical Knowledge

Through this evolution, these pieces show the reader the concrete was that groups assured control through different methods of asserting authority. Since Starr wrote both of his chapters the evidence for how physicians finessed the healthcare system to their benefit through the use of authority is straightforward since he developed the language that is being used. However, when looking at Gambles chapter the evidence isn’t as clear. When looking at the creation of both the Providence Hospital and the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital both Dr. Williams and Dr. Mossell employed tactics to increased their authority over desired parties. As a starting point, both men used their limited societal authority at the time to further their education and become physicians (Gamble 16,20).

In the sociology of medicine Parson (1951) regarded medicine as functional in social terms. By tackling the person’s problems in medical terms the tendency towards deviance that was represented by ill health could be safely directed, until they could return to their normal self. (Lawrence 1994: p 64-65: BMJ 2004: Parson cited in Gabe, Bury & Elston 2006, p 127).

The core moral order of medicine in the United States shares many of the core values of the scientific community. Wendland describes four central ideas that she believes form this moral order. The first idea is “reductionist rationality,” or the idea that the body and its diseases can be understood in an objective and scientific way by reducing into smaller components. It implies that there is no need for a theological or mystical explanation to explain a biological process or disease that is not currently understood. The solution lies in future research. The second idea is “authority over

Unfair competition and socialism amongst physicians and medical students emerged as medicine advanced and health departments were formed. “Nurses in schools were resisted by physicians who would lose some patients if they were cared for at school--city (New York City Health Department) pointed out that they would gain more patients by referral--physicians prevented them from doing any significant medical care.” (Starr.) The demand for care increased as the use of checkups and health exams--insurance, job, school became more commonly used in day-to-day practice. Chapter 5 also introduced a new idea of germ theory, “in the first half of the nineteenth century, some authorities attributed epidemics to cotagonian and recommended quarantines-an ecomonically damaging measure.”

As described by Dr. Atul Gawande in his book Complications, medicine “is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge… fallible individuals” making medicine different from other scientific fields

It can be a positive or negative effect, having and using power depending on how it is controlled by the individual. Positive effect is to facilitate treatment and negative is preventing access to services, due to pre-existing conditions such as mental health. Power and control operate on varying levels and service users may recognise that the professionals due to their knowledge and expertise have the power. Social and cultural expectations can affect balance of power in health. Peterson and Bunton stated that there was a desire to identify, control and eliminate disease’ (2000, pg 9). In conjunction with the growth of medicine and science came the medical model. This approach focuses on the individual having dysfunction and treating identified health issues. Welshman suggested it was created to respond to socially upsetting or disruptive phenomena’ (2006, pg 9). The

In the world that we live in today, many people would find it difficult to imagine living in a world where medicine and treatment are not readily available. The replacement of religious explanations to medical and scientific explanations has become a means of social control. If a person is in pain, they can easily set up an appointment with a doctor and receive some sort of medical diagnosis. However, there are certain instances where a problem has not been medicalized, or recognized as a medical problem, and their issue will be dismissed completely. The movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest delves into the idea of medicalization and how it can be used for the good, or for the bad, in terms of the “sick role.” Medicalization in the

The Atlanta-based internist is concerned with how recipients and providers of medical services receive and make health advice and recommendations, respectively. He rues the current practice of medicine, which now pays more emphasis to data or evidence: anything that the data reveals are immediately taken as hard science, with the results taken from studies that claim to “represent a consistently reliable representation of the real world of human beings” i.e., those who do not participate in the studies. For Paul, the data or studies could mean

There are other instances where the sociological imagination takes place in my route to entering medical school. The concept of race is another example of a force that is unforeseen, but plays a role in my life. As Marcy C. Waters describes “Skin color is an important ascribed characteristic in American society. Less visible are national origin and nationality” (Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only? 228). Essentially, race and nationality are forces that one does not have control over, but play crucial roles in his or her live. The concept of race can be traced to my past. For instance, when applying to college, a factor that colleges consider is the race or ethnicity of the applicant. Although some colleges may deny it, there are varying degrees of selection that are dependent on race. For instance, it may be easier for someone of African-American descent to get into college than someone of Asian descent. This concept of race does not only effect my past, but also plays a role in my future. When I apply to medical school, my race will be considered and it will play a factor in deciding if I get into medical school or not. I have no control of my race as it is something I am born with. It is another demonstration of the sociological imagination. Essentially, even if I focus on the many credentials of getting into medical school, there are uncontrolled sociological factors such as race that influence my chances of getting into medical school. These are social forces beyond

A physician must be well rounded in a variety of fields to provide effective care. First, an interest in learning scientific knowledge must be accompanied by the ability to translate that knowledge into methods of treatment. Because science is constantly changing and improving, a physician should be continuously expanding their scientific learning within and outside of their respective fields. Most of the coursework that I have taken reflects my interest in the intersection between biomedical science and its applications through an anthropological lens. For example, I have performed public

Illich (1990) even went as to say that themedical proffesion (including pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment suppliers) have a vested interest in illness so they create illnesses which have to be treated by doctors and drugs etc. this means conditions that used to be seen as natural, such as dying or unhappiness have now undergone a social iatrogenesis (doctor caused illness) whereby people cannot handle their own health anymore. postmodernists dislike this use of medical discourse because one theory has more prestige that it should be considered the truth.

The conceptualisation of medicine as an institution of societal control was first theorised by Parsons (1951), and from this stemmed the notion of the deviant termed illness in which the “sick role” was a legitimised condition. The societal reaction and perspective was deemed a pillar of the emerging social construction of disease and conception of the formalised medical model of disease. Concerns surrounding medicalisation fundamentally stem from the fusion of social and medical concerns wherein the lines between the two are gradually blurred and the the social consequences of the proliferation of disease diagnosis that results from such ambiguities of the social medical model.

The social sciences became so pervasive in the twentieth century they not only produced new additions to medical discourse, but completely shifted the means of enforcing power. The emergence of individualism and the importance that was placed on one's essential and core identity made it so power that was once externally imposed by physical punishment only, began to enforce itself by way of the individual. The internalization of surveillance, domination, and discipline created a society of self policing individuals. This self policing behavior is most evident among women, and unlike the bodily protest against domestic expectations and other inequalities; it is the internalization of these oppressions, however ultimately manifesting as illness

Mukherjee (2015) talks about the three laws of medicine however these are his personal laws that may or may not be followed by other health professionals. He explains each law that he had learned through personal experiences with patients. The first law is ‘A strong intuition is much more powerful than a weak test,’ explains that there may be some hidden variable when diagnosing a patient that could be crucial in life or death situations. A variable could be the environment that a person lives in or their lifestyle and this chapter notes to know when to look for small clues that could possibly help. The second law is ‘”Normals” teach us rules; “outliers” teach us laws, ' talks about how normal cases teach and build the rules of what should be done on a regular basis of patients, what is normal. Outliers are the cases where it may untreatable but has the chance to reshape and even advance medicine. The third law is 'For every perfect medical experiment, there is a perfect human bias, ' talks about how we hope for a medical treatment that can help treat a disease but it is biased because it either works or doesn’t work despite a few anomalies. These are laws Mukherjee has learned from experience and applies throughout his career, they may not be followed by all health practitioners.

The treatment of physical and mental problems has undergone a rapid change in the past few decades. An increasing number of bodily and behavioural symptoms now have a recognised medical diagnosis and corresponding treatment. Sociologists have attributed these changes to the process of medicalization, wherein “non-medical problems come to be defined and treated as if they were medical issues” (McLennan, McManus & Spoonley 2009: 271). Medicalization is an ongoing, gradual process which occurs through the social construction of new diseases by groups such as health professionals (Conrad 2007: 4). It can be argued that medicalization is an active and passive process by which diseases are constructed in an attempt to find treatments for patients; and that diseases can be ‘socially’ constructed as well as ‘corporately’ constructed by companies to create a profitable market of consumers. At the micro level of society, medicalization in the Western world has been influenced by liberal notions of individualization which has extended to some parts of the health sector. At the macro level, medicalization has been buoyed by the process of the professionalization, expansion of state monopoly over the health profession and religious and political social movements. Although some academics argue that the medicalization of society is less significant than the process of “de-medicalization”, there is clear evidence that the process of medicalization is intensifying and outstripping the rate