Full Description
What are the limits of medical power? How has sociology helped to make sense of illness, disease, choice and risk? What are the challenges to medical practice?This timely and assured text provides lecturers and students with a well informed, penetrating analysis of the key questions in medicine and society. The book is divided into three sections. It opens with a well judged account of the context of health and illness. It moves on to examine the process and experience of illness. Finally, it examines how health care is negotiated and delivered. The result is an accessible, coherent and lively book that has wide inter-disciplinary appeal to students of medical sociology, medical care and health management.
Contents
Part 1 The social context of health and illnessA very brief history of medicine and societyIntroduction1900 - the dawn of the twentieth centuryFirst World War: 1914-19181918-1939Second World War 1939-19451945 to the 21st centuryCosts and benefits of 20th century medical innovationHealth inequalitiesMedical transformationsFurther readingRevision questions & Extension questionsDefining the doctor's remitIntroductionDiagnosis: legitimate and illegitimate illnessTreating diagnosed diseaseDefining deathDoing deathDefining doctors as special healersOverlap with other professionals' workSpecialization to the point of incoherence?Medicine's place in societyFurther readingRevision questions & Extension questionsDefining health, defining diseaseIntroductionBiomedical disease modelLimitations of the biomedical modelDefining healthLay understandings of healthDimensions of lay models of healthThe context of healthBiomedical disease and the value of healthFurther readingRevision questions & Extension questions Part 2 Getting ill, being illThe social causes of diseaseIntroductionClass, ill health and industrial revolutionSocial class and inequalityPublic policy approaches to inequalityMechanisms causing health inequalities by classEthnicity and inequalityAge and genderTackling health inequalities Future prospectsInternational health inequalitiesFurther readingRevision questions & Extension questionsRisk, choice and lifestyleIntroductionIndividuals and their behavioursRisk taking and thrill seekingRisky sex and gay menPrejudice and blameCousin marriage and congenital problemsRisk and preventative medicineNew risks, new diseases - we're all patients now?Risk, lifestyle medicine - what next?Further readingRevision questions & Extension questionsExperiencing illnessIntroductionThe sick roleSickness as devianceStigma and illnessIllness as failureBiographical disruption and illness narrativesAutopathographyRemaking lives?Further readingRevision questions & Extension questionsIll bodies in societyIntroductionBodies in societyEmbodied illnessDualist thinkingBodies as machinesSuffering bodiesImpaired bodies and disabilityFurther readingRevision & Extension questionsThe process of disabilityIntroductionDisability and the life courseChronic illness, impairment and disabilityThe social model of disabilityThe cultural model of disabilitySpecial or universal needsFurther readingRevision & Extension questionsPart 3 Getting healthcareDoctor-patient relationshipsIntroductionSelf-careAppropriate consultationCompliance, co-operation, conflictInverse care lawEvidence on medical consultationsCommunicating across the divideCo-operation and challengeFurther readingRevision & Extension questionsThe healthcare organizationIntroductionWhat's so special about the NHS?Socialized medicineInsurance systemPluralist socialized systemEvaluating the NHSReforming the NHSClinical governanceMedical dominanceThe role of the hospitalCommercial and industrial interests in the NHSThe context of careFurther readingRevisions & extension questionsChallenges to medicineIntroductionChanging medical practiceDisappearing doctors, disappearing patientsDoctors' difficultiesRegulating medicineReform from withinNon-human threatsProspectsFurther readingRevision & Extension questionsConclusionIntroductionChange and continuityEffective care: competing prioritiesThe politics of communicationUncertaintyContext
