The concepts discussed within the article regarding medicalization and changes within the field of medicine served to be new knowledge for me as the article addressed multiple different aspects regarding the growth of medicalization from a sociological standpoint. Furthermore, the article “The Shifting Engines of Medicalization” discussed the significant changes regarding medicalization that have evolved and are evidently practiced within the contemporary society today. For instance, changes have occurred within health policies, corporatized medicine, clinical freedom, authority and sovereignty exercised by physicians has reduced as other factors began to grow that gained importance within medical care (Conrad 4). Moreover, the article emphasized
Preventative medicine comes with the potential for making our lives both better and worse. Today the world in which we live in has faced steady medicalization of daily existence. Many factors have contributed to the rise of medicalization. For instance the loss in religion, the increase of faith in science, rationality, progress, increased prestige and the power of the medical profession. The medical profession and the expansion of medical jurisdiction were prime movers for medicalization. Medicalization has also occurred through social movements. Doctors are not the only ones involved in medicalization now, patients are active collaborators in the medicalization of their problem. Critics try to argue for or against the idea that this leads to a favorable versus a non -favorable outcome. This increased establishment and development of medicine, including technoscience, has resulted in a major threat to health. The medicalization of normal conditions, risks the creation of medical diagnoses that are widely inclusive and that hold the potential for further expansion. Many biologically normal conditions, like shortness, menopause, and infertility, are currently considered medical problems. These naturally occurring states are now regarded as undesirable and deviant. This process is referred to as medicalization. Although they are considered deviant, however, the process of medicalization also removes culpability: a person’s problems can be ascribed to a chemical imbalance rather than seen as reflecting his or her character or accomplishments. Some of the articles I will be looking into are Dumit’s “Drugs for life” as well as Healy’s “Pharmageddon” and Cassel’s “Selling Sickness” to explore if this process of overmedicalization has le...
Medicalization can either be a positive or a negative thing in society often some suffering from an illness turn to the label of medicalization to be able to be accepted from society. Medicalization can be positive for a society if it’s done for all the right reasons rather than just personal interest for those behind it.
In his book The Silent World of Doctor and Patient, author Jay Katz describes the history of how physicians view the patient’s role in medical decision making. Particularly, within chapter one, “Physicians and Patients: A History of Silence,” Katz sheds light on the relationship between physicians and their patients and the scope of the physician’s authority.
Sullivan, Lawrence. The Case against Socialized Medicine; A Constructive Analysis of the Attempt to Collectivize American Medicine. Washington: The Statesman Press, 1948.
In his essay, “The Refutation of Medical Paternalism,” Alan Goldman discusses his argument against differentiation in the roles between physicians and patients. He says the physician may act against a patient’s will in order treat the patient in their best interest. Goldman makes his whole argument around the assumption that a person’s right to decide his or her future is the most important and fundamental right, saying, “the autonomous individual is the source of those other goods he enjoys, and so is not to be sacrificed for the sake of them.” His claim is that most people agree that they are the best judges of their own self-interest and there is an innate value in the freedom to determine their own future. On these principles, Goldman starts by discussing conditions under which paternalism may be justified.
...—illnesses became medicalized where previous “illnesses” are seen as normal occurrences, becoming de-medicalized in the process (i.e., homosexuality). Society continues to control the medical realm as beliefs and ideas are revamped to fit the culture in that modern-day.
Medicalization is something that has become overly common all over the world. It seems as if almost everything, from aging to deviant behaviors, is medicalized. Human beings have a tendency to want things their way, so they strive to get what they desire. Little do people know “each instance of medicalization represents an advance in medicine’s control over the human body” (Ferrante Ch. 6). This may not seem like a serious problem, but as medicalization increases so does the chances of danger towards people’s lives.
Conrad, who was a medical sociology teacher discusses how the way they classify disease and illness has changed over time. Conrad talks about how illnesses, that are “behavioral,” mental illnesses, has become medical diagnosis and medical treatments, medicalization. Medicalization is defined as a process in which nonmedical problems are not being classified as medical problems. Conrad touches on the rise of medicalization, the social factors that have influenced it. Medicalization, viewed as a social construct, it is a form of collective action. Medicalization would have not happened if it wasn’t from the support of physicians and the medical professions, they were central to this whole medicalization. The controversies and critiques of medicalization
Medicalization is defined as the gradual social formation whereby medicine comes to exercise authority over areas of life that were not previously considered medical. Oftentimes, this means a process by which problems, viewed historically as simply socially deviant, become illnesses. Medicalization can occur with both mental issues, such as ADHD and grief, and physical issues, such as erectile dysfunction and fatness. One of the largest problems with medicalization is the construction of these diseases largely for the profit of the pharmaceutical industry. The gradual widening of medical categories to include more people, a concept known as diagnostic bracket creep, enables medical industries to profit off of those who are “sick.” When using
With the expansion of the sociology of medicine, it has become increasingly important to consider its theories in terms of their effectiveness in application. While there is a range of concepts to evaluate, the focus here is specifically on the strengths and limitations of dualism and medicalization, as they represent significant aspects of both the medical model and its spread in contemporary society.
Medicalization is when human conditions that were not previously known as illnesses are defined and treated as a medical problem. These problems are new and call for treatment by a medical doctor or another form of medical involvement such as therapy, medication, or surgery. Peter Conrad l writes a summary of his ideas on the topic and a wide exploration of current trends and developments is society.
240). Instead, he proposes that ideally a panel of laymen should regulate the profession, however, he dismisses the viability of such scheme as working men are “too biased, [and] too unintelligent” to carry it out effectively (Cronin, 2013, p. 210). However, the medical profession, as it stood in the 1930s, is unable to deal with members who behave incompetently and unethically (Donaldson, 2008). This is due to the medical elites, who represent and control the medical institution, being ignorant and perpetrating notorious practices themselves. This is a consequence of the clinical freedom possessed by professionals to exercise clinical judgement and discretion, which asserts their authority, without any form of accountability (Parker, 2005). Cronin’s proposal to alter the ideals of the profession, to become more scientific, does not target the very the root of corruption. The unchecked power and supremacy of the medical institution, built upon the formation of trust and reliability, allows them to control society (Bosk, 2006). Physicians have “the power to define, diagnose and expand the domain of illness in need of expert intervention” (Bosk, 2006, p. 638). As such, they are able to “transform if not actually create the substance of [their] own work” (Freidson, 1988, p. xvii), by introducing the notion of illness as a social state. Consequently, the freedom of the layperson diminishes, as they are convinced into believing that they are ‘ill’ and in need of urgent medical attention (Zola, 1972). Additionally, doctors and pharmaceutical companies intentionally broaden disease categories, and encourage the medicalisation of daily life, in order to increase the profit generated from their products and services (Moynihan, 2002). The only means of exterminating venality from the institution, is to constrain the unbound
The twentieth century has witnessed a dramatic rise in population over the past one hundred years, growing from 1.65 billion in 1900 to surpassing seven billion in 2011. For such a fast-developing population, the medicalisation of society was a foreseeable consequence. This essay will examine the extent that motherhood has been medicalised in the twentieth century through focusing on themes of mortality, social expectations, and the advancements in medicine. To fully examine the extent that motherhood has been medicalised, medicalisation will be defined as ‘to give a medical character to; to involve medical workers in; to view or interpret in (eps. Unnecessarily) medical terms’ and will be applied from conception of the child.
In the 19th century, the field of sociology developed, thus allowing for many sociologists to challenge the way society works, especially, in the health care system. Deborah Lupton is one of these sociologists that has researched the social and cultural aspects of medicine and the public health. She has published “a series of papers emerging from a study on patients’ and medical practitioners’ views on the medical profession and the coverage of the medical profession in the mass media.” (Lupton, 1997:108) In this article, she delves deeply into medicalization to shed the light on the contributions of a Foucauldian perspective to understand power relations within the medical profession. Lupton agrees with the Foucauldian perspective and argues
The medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth first began appearing in the 19th century and is now a dominant way of perceiving processes that were once considered natural. The process of medicalization is a social process that focuses on the “biomedical tendency to pathologize otherwise normal bodily processes and states” (Inhorn 2006). Medicalization is a concept that deals with what is defined as healthy and what is defined as illness in society. The process of medicalization in modern societies involves taking a naturally occurring process like pregnancy or childbirth in women and redefining these processes as disruptions to health requiring medical treatment. Because pregnancy is seen as disrupting health, the processes of being pregnant