Challenging Medicine / Edition 2

by David Kelleher, Jonathan Gabe, Gareth Williams

Overview

This highly topical and controversial book presents a lively re-appraisal of the current changes to the health service and analyzes their effects on the status and practice of health professionals.

Modern medicine is a powerful institution. With the help of highly-developed drugs and surgical techniques, it promises to relieve suffering, improve the quality of life and extend the life-span. Conversely, it is expensive for the governments, insurance companies and individuals who pay for it and sometimes appears to be insensitive to the needs of those for whom it provides. And while recent restructuring of healthcare delivery services has provided medical practitioners with new challenges, there has been very little consideration of the range of pressures that they now face.

Edited and written by experienced medical sociologists, this book draws together analysis of a number of diverse challenges to medicine, and provides original debate on the challenges posed from within medicine from nurses and managers and alternative practitioners, and from outside by self-help groups, the women’s movement and the media.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415389549
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/22/2005
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kelleher, David; Gabe, Jonathan; Williams, Gareth

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors Preface Understanding Medical Dominance in the Modern World 1. From Tribalism to Corporatism: The Continuing Managerial Challenge to Medical Dominance 2. The Challenge of Nursing 3. Litigation and the Threat to Medicine 4. Television and Medicine: Medical Dominance or Trial by Media? 5. The Alternatives to Medicine 6. Self-help Groups and Their Relationship to Medicine 7. Lay Knowledge and the Privilege of Experience 8. Sex, Gender and Medicine: The Case of the NHS 9. Attacking the Foundations of Modern Medicine? Anti-Vivisection Protest and Medical Science Index

Editorial Reviews

'Especially refreshing to see theory interwoven with emprical work.' - The Lancet

'Essential and topical resource ... comprehensive appraisal of the role of the medical profession in late twentieth century health care' Ray Fitzpatrick, Nuffield College, Oxford

'An accessible and very interesting account of some of the important influences on the medical profession in modern society ... useful to anyone interested in getting a broad overview of some of the major factors that are currently shaping and influencing medical power and control.' - Health Services News

Praise for the first edition:

'Especially refreshing to see theory interwoven with empirical work.' - The Lancet

'Essential and topical resource...comprehensive appraisal of the role of the medical profession in late twentieth century health care.' - Ray Fitzpatrick, Nuffield College, Oxford

From the Publisher