Socialism

Chapter 10

Medical Sociology

* Medical Sociology is based on the view that medical practices and beliefs are intensive social issue.

* Healing is achieved through social means, therefore, sociological factors (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity) will affect your treatment by the medical professions.

Sick Role

* Falcott Parsons introduced the concept of the sick role in his book, the social system (1951)

* Parsons argued that being sick came with certain expectations both for the sick and for society.

* The ‘sick role’ is the set of expectations that go along with what a sick person can expect from society.

The Sick

* 1. Should be exempt from normal social responsibilities

* 2. Should be taken care of instead of having to take care of themselves

* 3. are socially obligated to try to get well

* 4. are socially obligated to seek technically competent help

Social Causes of Disease

* Disease goes through a natural course of development… catch it, suffer through it gradually get better or worse

* Likewise, a disease also goes through a social course. The social interactions that a person goes through in the process of being treated.

Biomedicine

* Biomedicine involves the application of standard principles of western scientific disciplines, particularly biology, in the diagnosis and treatment of symptoms of illness and disease.

* Alternative medicine may take into account biological factors but work outside mainstream medical practice (e.g., yoga, massage therapy, etc.)

* Biomedicine has been criticized for looking at health from a reductionist perspective that attributes medical conditions to single factors treatable with single remedies.

Cultural Syndromes

* Cultural syndromes are disorders supposed to afflict people of certain ethnicities: often created to ‘psychologize’ problems brought on by western colonial control

Medicalization

* Medicalization as defined by Chang and Christakis (2002) is:...