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religious considerations in health care
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religious considerations in health care
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Modernization and Medicine
On the first day of class, we discussed how modernization has brought the institution of medicine so far. Although the cost of modernization is seen as the "social germ", modernization has also brought enormous improvement in health. Modern medicine defies all ancient reason. In primitive societies the division of labor was vague, no real specializing in anything, but over years of experimentation and development, the establishment of medicine was born. We now have overflowing systems of specialization and technological advancements, but this did not happen overnight.
Originally, religion had made medicine its own institution, despite Hypocrites suggestion to "take medicine out of religion and make it its own; health depends on other things…" Doctors, when they existed, were not always the powerful profession that they are today. They had far less prestige, and before 1900, were rather despised. But there has always been a need to care for the sick. This dependence eventually called on those in the professional medical field. Being dependent on doctors means that we must submit to their authority and recognize their power, something that took years to come to. The acceptance of this professional authority was a revolution. This revolution created a pyramid of power, defining authority of various groups in a hierarchical sense. But this authority was not readily accepted. The people of the 19th century did not accept doctors as authoritative. They had more "common sense" that that and weren't ready to give up their own good judgment and submit to a physicians. But time, world events, and changes made the people more dependent. Self- reliance faded at the end of the 19th century, making folks more needy of specialized skill. People spread out geographically and couldn't rely on their neighbors as much anymore, turning them to professional "strangers" for help. Technologies such as transportation, telephones and hospitals helped welcome the professional world. The sick no longer lay in bed at home, but went into the hospitals to confide in the physicians for healing. Science began to get respect, forcing the scientific world of medicine to be recognized as well. No longer was it up to the woman of the house to keep remedies for illnesses on hand and care for the sick of the house. Domestic medicine was fading out of the picture by the late nineteenth century and professional medicine was rearing its costly head. Professional medicine began to gain legitimacy.
Twenty four centuries ago, Hippocrates created the profession of medicine, for the first time in human history separating and refining the art of healing from primitive superstitions and religious rituals. His famous Oath forged medicine into what the Greeks called a technik, a craft requiring the entire person of the craftsman, an art that, according to Socrates in his dialogue Gorgias, involved virtue in the soul and spirit as well as the hands and brain. Yet Hippocrates made medicine more than a craft; he infused it with an intrinsic moral quality, creating a “union of medical skill and the integrity of the person [physician]” (Cameron, 2001).
He was one of the first doctors to observe his patients, and believed humans should lead simple and stable lives to keep them healthy and their humours balanced. Dissection was still looked down upon, and even forbidden, in these times, and therefore this held back medical studies from progressing further. People trained under these beliefs were recognised as doctors instead of priests. This was a huge development in medical history as beliefs in supernatural causes began to die out, and women who were not slaves were also allowed to train as do...
To conclude, medicine of this time was so sad that death was inevitable. They couldn’t blame the doctors or even themselves for the cause of all these diseases because they didn’t really know what to do. Doctors were experimenting and taking lives but not learning from their ineffective practices like bleeding or leeching. Religion was probably the best possible choice for that time.
...l student: surrounded by books, a model of human skull at his elbow, he labored over his studies with gravity and decorum late in to the night" (Peterson 40). Because of the efforts of the enlightened few, and because of the discoveries happening in other European countries, the United Kingdom was finally able to give the medical profession the much desired respect and reform that it needed, making medicine a profession to be revered and a source of pride to all those who practiced it.
Health, how it is defined and how it is maintained, is a reflection of the dominant ideology in a certain society. The medical system of Western countries, including Australia, is based on the biomedical model of health or biomedicine. According to Lord Nigel Crisp, who is a global health reform advocate, former Chief Executive of the National Health Service (NHS) in United Kingdom (UK) and previous Permanent Secretary of the UK Department of Health, Western scientific medicine and the health systems based on them have exhibited spectacular success in improving health over the last century and it has come to dominate medical thinking, habits and institutions globally. It also served as the guide for health regulating bodies including the World Health Organization, health care professional associations and pharmaceutical companies. He argued, however, that presently Western scientific medicine is no longer capable of solely managing the health demands of peoples in both the industrialised and developing countries. There is a need to adapt and absorb new ideas to be able to meet the demands of the twenty first century(Marble, 2010). In order to get a better understanding of the current health system in Western societies this paper attempts to take a closer look at the development of scientific medicine as the foundation of modern medical practice. In addition to the overview of biomedicine, a few of the challenges to its discourse will also be presented throughout the discussion.
...e gap in attitudes between pre-medicalized and modern time periods. The trends of technological advancement and human understanding project a completely medicalized future in which medical authorities cement their place above an intently obedient society.
Although medicine has come along way especially in recent years, there were medicine men and wom...
Peter Conrad’s book, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders, examined several cases of human conditions, once viewed as normal, now considered as medical issues. Conrad defined this transition of human problems to disorders that are medically defined, studied, diagnosed and treated as “medicalization”. Specifically, Conrad discussed certain conditions, such as adult ADHD, as age related phenomena that have been medicalized. Throughout, Conrad demonstrated how these issues became medically defined because of the current research and financing structure of medicine in the United States. Those newly defined illnesses changed people’s perceptions and expectations of health and old age, thus dramatically altering society’s expectations of medicine and subsequent life quality. Conrad’s ethnography is a good example of the ethnomedical approach to medical anthropology that addressed several health conditions that are prominent in the United States. He culminated his book by arguing medicalization primarily serves as a form of social control, solving problems with individuals and not society. While the book clearly explained a wide range of negative causes and effects of medicalization, Conrad only acknowledged a few examples of successful resistance briefly in his last chapter. In order to empower its readers beyond education, the book should have examined these instances of anti-medicalization to find similarities and derive productive countermeasures for individuals to follow. Conrad thoroughly outlined the history, examples and influencing factors that promote medicalization, but failed to offer any combative solution to the resulting problems of medicalization.
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
“Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity,” says Hippocrates. This love is shown through the efforts of those who work and have worked to improve the medical field for so long to better the United States. Throughout the last one-hundred years the health of the nation and the state of our hospitals in the United States has become a big concern. As the people of the United States health decreases the need for an advanced medical field grows. The medical field is already very advanced and has advanced much in the last one-hundred years. The improvement of surgeries, vaccines, treatments, and everyday medicines are the main focus of the medical industry. When looking at the United States one would see that medical improvements have certainly changed the country for the better.
Healthcare is like other avenues of business and life, it is constantly changing. At the turn of the 19th century, food and occupations were different than they are today. Like the changes in food and other occupations, healthcare is no different. We also would not want it to be. If the country remained struggling with the same challenges of 1899, then we would not have progressed as a medical society. As healthcare changes we all have to change. Change in our ways, tactics, thinking, and structure of the healthcare market. According to Merriam-Webster (2014) the maintaining and restoration of health by the prevention and treatment of diseases, mainly by trained professionals is healthcare (Merriam-Webster, 2014).
Doctors had power toward their patients and their interns. As it shows in the book review of The Silent World of Doctor and Patients by Jay Katz; one of the interns said “There is a hierarchy in the hospital, on the top is the attending’s, then is the Chief residence, followed by interns and lastly is the three years’ medical students” and Katz said “Patients can 't trust their physicians to act in their interests…” Patients don’t have the mentality of making a medical decision on their own like an intern can’t make a surgery without an attending watching over them. The capability a patient and intern has is very little to benefit their outcome of health and knowledge.
Freeman, David H. "The Triumph of New-Age Medicine." The Atlantic. 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. .
According to Foucault and Illich (in Van Krieken et al. 2006: 351-352), doctors and the medical profession have traditionally been empowered by their knowledge as the authority that society defers to with regards to the definition of disease and health. With improvements in medical technology as well as the advent of the hospital, an evolution...
After the industrial revolution in the 18th century in Europe and America, there was the rapid industrial and economic growth in the 19th century, which in turn caused various scientific discoveries and various invention therefore making more progress in identifying illnesses and developing modes of treatment and cure, this was where modern medicine started. After the industrial revolution there were more industries, which in turn created a lot of work-related diseases and poor hygiene, also as the cities began to grow larger, more communicable diseases began to increase, cases like typhoid and cholera became epidemics. As well, due to the changes occurring, more and more people became more aware and since there was democracy there became an increase in demand for health care. There were also the wars that occurred, causing injuries which needed to be treated. Modern medicine evolves to solve the problems of the society at a given time and various advances in this mode of health care has occurred over the years. It has been seen that modern medicine is a positive influence in the society today for various reasons, the goal of the modern medicine is to achieve good health of the citizens, and modern medicine is experimental which is capable of advanced diagnosis. Likewise, modern medicine has an effect on the social and economic state of the modern society. Modern medicine is understood as the science of treating, diagnosing or even preventing illnesses using improved sophisticated technology. This mode of treatment involves a variety of methods, using diet, exercise, treatment by drugs or even surgery.