1.(MeSH)The study of the social determinants and social effects of health and disease, and of the social structure of medical institutions or professions.
Medical Sociology (n.) [MeSH]
|Theory · History|
|Topics · Subfields|
Cities · Class · Crime · Culture
Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural (rather than clinical or bodily) effects of medical practice. The field commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social epistemology. Medical sociologists are also interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences. Health disparities commonly relate to typical categories such as class and race. Objective sociological research findings quickly become a normative and political issue.
Early work in medical sociology was conducted by Lawrence J Henderson whose theoretical interests in the work of Vilfredo Pareto inspired Talcott Parsons interests in sociological systems theory. Parsons is one of the founding fathers of medical sociology, and applied social role theory to interactional relations between sick people and others. Key contributors to medical sociology since the 1950s include Howard S. Becker, Mike Bury, Peter Conrad, Jack Douglas, David Silverman, Phil Strong, Bernice Pescosolido, Carl May, Anne Rogers, Anselm Strauss, Renee Fox, and Joseph W. Schneider.
The field of medical sociology is usually taught as part of a wider sociology, clinical psychology or health studies degree course, or on dedicated Master's degree courses where it is sometimes combined with the study of medical ethics/bioethics. In Britain, sociology was introduced into the medical curriculum following the Goodenough report in 1944: "In medicine, ‘social explanations’ of the aetiology of disease meant for some doctors a redirection of medical thought from the purely clinical and psychological criteria of illness. The introduction of ‘social’ factors into medical explanation was most strongly evidenced in branches of medicine closely related to the community — Social Medicine and, later, General Practice" (Reid 1976).
The professionalization of medicine has brought on many contemporary transformations. Firstly, the medical industry is not only concerned with disease and illness, but health as well. Also, hospitals are not solely responsible for providing health care and research; the entire community is considered to play a role in the modernization of the medical industry. The definition of pain has broadened to include chronic symptoms in addition to acute symptoms. Fourthly, research used to emphasize finding a cure has expanded to investigating preventions of disease. Treatment style has also advanced from being highly dependent on intervention to now using monitoring techniques. Lastly, as professional medicine advances, the role of the client has shifted from patient to person.
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