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Professional Dominance in Medicine
Abstract
Professional dominance is a theory about professionalization and a profession's relation to society that implies that this relationship is out of balance. It thus opens up issues of trust, exploitation of patients and society, suppression of competing groups, subordination of allied professions, and escalation of costs. The term is inherently less neutral than “professionalism” or the study of professions in society. It is largely used in literature on the medical profession in modern times.
... Two problems that are crippling the intervention of public health policy-makers in South Asia is that first, we are dependent on health research from the West and, second, we are dependent on private bodies for medical research and technology development. The latter includes the professional dominance and occupational interests of medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies; which necessitates the involvement of public research centres to step forward for women's health research (Latten et al. 2018;Light 2007). South Asian governments need to take immediate initiative for investment in research for the health needs of South Asian women, as their health challenges and recovery options are different compared to women from other regions of the world. ...
Displacement and climate change are significant challenges facing South Asia due to political mismanagement, ethnic conflict, natural disasters, and environmental degradation. More than 10.3 million South Asian women are currently displaced or affected by climate change. The term feminization of displacement has become associated with South Asian women, as they have been facing great consequences to health, both physical and emotional, due to displacement and climate change. In this chapter, we discuss the health vulnerabilities of displaced and climate-affected women in detail. We also identify women with greater health risks during and after disaster and displacement, including those who: (i) are uneducated, live in women-only households, and do not own assets, (ii) have never worked and have no skill for formal employment, (iii) live in temporary shelters or face evacuation delays, (iv) face violence and are forced to marry, and (v) are forced to assume added care roles as recovery agents. This chapter also includes a summary which classifies the health impacts on women caused by environmental alterations due to displacement and climate change. Important recommendations are provided for critical health reforms and extended health policy in the region for displaced and climate-affected women.
... Two problems that are crippling the intervention of public health policy-makers in South Asia is that first, we are dependent on health research from the West and, second, we are dependent on private bodies for medical research and technology development. The latter includes the professional dominance and occupational interests of medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies; which necessitates the involvement of public research centres to step forward for women's health research (Latten et al. 2018;Light 2007). South Asian governments need to take immediate initiative for investment in research for the health needs of South Asian women, as their health challenges and recovery options are different compared to women from other regions of the world. ...
Globally, mental distress in women is higher compared to men, and yet in South Asia there is extreme neglect for service care and awareness related to mental health. This chapter discusses three critical areas of: the social factors that place South Asian women at increased risk of mental health challenges at different life stages, the social barriers that prevent access to mental healthcare services, and the socioeconomic costs of neglecting women’s mental health. Country-wise assessment of mental health problems is investigated through a literature review in order to understand specific and comparative problems for South Asia. We also present primary data regarding perceptions of women primary healthcare physicians regarding mental health of South Asian women. Through thematic analysis we have been able to identify medical problems coexisting with mental health problems and socio-structural barriers to improved women’s mental healthcare in South Asia. Finally, we are able to recommend necessary improvements for mental health support, including: (i) extensive integration of mental healthcare services at federal and provincial level; (ii) provision of trained specialists and nonspecialist mental healthcare providers within the community at primary level; (iii) immediate relief for women who cannot escape emotional abuse, like daycare centers, halfway homes, sheltered workshops, and temporary-stay facilities; (iv) formal monitoring for the function and efficacy of private and NGO mental health programs; and (v) reducing stigma against mental health and improving awareness and support through systematic government schemes, media literacy, and small participatory programs, religious psychology, and community-based interventions combining women, men, and families.
... There is also the impact of controversial research, experiments, or even unclear financial dependencies and conflicts of interest of some researchers on pharmaceutical, tobacco, or fuel companies. 1 In fact, large corporations were and are able to skew the results of professional research in ways that benefit them (Light, 2007). Hierarchic systems of knowledge and the domination of the expert system have contributed to people starting to prefer the democratization of knowledge in light of many violations of the public trust (G. ...
Accepting ethic norms involves naturalization of beliefs, assuming them as unalterable truths. Social sciences have been inscribed with certain standards for years. In the last twenty-five years, the practice of having research projects approved by ethics committees has become institutionalized, in some cases leading to extreme bureaucracy and changing the character of the issue, shifting the weight from the personal moral obligation of the researcher and an issue that requires high flexibility and individualism towards a set of forms to be filled out, pseudo-warrants of the safety of the research subjects. However, Internet research has opened the eyes of the sociologists to new problems and caused reconsideration of some issues of research ethics. This chapter discusses key notions of research ethics in the digital studies context. It shows how internet can be a source of infamy, and warns against improper use of data. It positions the fundamental rules of anonymity, privacy, informed consent, data ownership, as well as data confidentiality in the context of digital social studies.
... There is also the impact of controversial research, experiments, or even unclear financial dependencies and conflicts of interest of some researchers on pharmaceutical, tobacco, or fuel companies. 1 In fact, large corporations were and are able to skew the results of professional research in ways that benefit them (Light, 2007). Hierarchic systems of knowledge and the domination of the expert system have contributed to people starting to prefer the democratization of knowledge in light of many violations of the public trust (G. ...
The chapter presents the idea of Thick Big Data, a methodological approach combining big data sets with thick, ethnographic analysis. It presents different quantitative methods, including Google Correlate, social network analysis (SNA), online polls, culturomics, and data scraping, as well as easy tools to start working with online data. It describes the key differences in performing qualitative studies online, by focusing on the example of digital ethnography. It helps using case studies for digital communities as well. It gives specific guidance on conducting interviews online, and describes how to perform narrative analysis of digital culture. It concludes with describing methods of studying online cultural production, and discusses the notions of remix culture, memes, and trolling.
... There is also the impact of controversial research, experiments, or even unclear financial dependencies and conflicts of interest of some researchers on pharmaceutical, tobacco, or fuel companies. 1 In fact, large corporations were and are able to skew the results of professional research in ways that benefit them (Light, 2007). Hierarchic systems of knowledge and the domination of the expert system have contributed to people starting to prefer the democratization of knowledge in light of many violations of the public trust (G. ...
This chapter discusses three major changes resulting from the emerging communication technologies. It addresses the new forms of shaping relations online. Friendships, intimacy, the rise of weak ties, as well as an increased fluidity of relations are discussed. Next, the chapter addresses the demise of expert knowledge. Starting with McDonaldization of higher education and the rise of anti-intellectual sentiments, the chapter addresses the new trends in democratizing knowledge. While recognizing highly positive aspects of the turn, such as citizen science, Wikipedia, or free/open source movement, it also addresses the darker and more troubling processes, such as anti-scientific sentiments, pseudotheories, and the takeover of knowledge production and distribution by quacks. Finally, the chapter focuses on sharing economy. By problematizing the “sharing” premise, as well as by showing the impact of the ongoing change reaching far beyond economy itself, the chapter introduces the notion of collaborative society, as better covering the social change we witness.
... There is also the impact of controversial research, experiments, or even unclear financial dependencies and conflicts of interest of some researchers on pharmaceutical, tobacco, or fuel companies. 1 In fact, large corporations were and are able to skew the results of professional research in ways that benefit them (Light, 2007). Hierarchic systems of knowledge and the domination of the expert system have contributed to people starting to prefer the democratization of knowledge in light of many violations of the public trust (G. ...
The social sciences are becoming datafied. The questions that have been considered the domain of sociologists, now are answered by data scientists, operating on large datasets, and breaking with the methodological tradition for better or worse. The traditional social sciences, such as sociology or anthropology, are thus under the double threat of becoming marginalized or even irrelevant; both because of the new methods of research, which require more computational skills, and because of the increasing competition from the corporate world, which gains an additional advantage based on data access. However, sociologists and anthropologists still have some important assets, too. Unlike data scientists, they have a long history of doing qualitative research. The more quantified datasets we have, the more difficult it is to interpret them without adding layers of qualitative interpretation. Big Data needs Thick Data. This book presents the available arsenal of new tools for studying the society quantitatively, but also show the new methods of analysis from the qualitative side and encourages their combination. In shows that Big Data can and should be supplemented and interpreted through thick data , as well as cultural analysis, in a novel approach of Thick Big Data.The book is critically important for students and researchers in the social sciences to understand the possibilities of digital analysis, both in the quantitative and qualitative area, and successfully build mixed-methods approaches.
Fragment książki "Socjologia internetu", stanowiącej wprowadzenie do cyfrowych metod badań społecznych, zarówno ilościowych (Big Data, SNA - analiza sieci, kwestionariusze, kulturomika), jak i jakościowych (etnografia, wywiad, storytelling, narracje) i kulturowych (analiza wizualna i treści) z dodatkiem na temat etyki badawczej w badaniach internetu.
Technological advances in medicine have greatly enhanced the ability of physicians to treat disease and disability, but, at the same time, changes in the organization and management of health care services in the United States have imposed constraints on their autonomy. How have these changes--medical advancement and professional decline--affected the theoretical concept of the medical profession? Challenging the prevailing model of professional dominance, the concepts of deprofessionalization, corporatization, and proletarianization emphasize the effects of recent social and economic developments on the changing status of the medical profession. There is evidence, however, that what the proponents of these concepts perceive as the profession's response to external forces are, in fact, the unanticipated consequences of the profession's campaign for autonomy.
The context for contemporary research and policy is set through a theoretically informed history of the modern American health care system that draws on the concept of countervailing powers and Fligstein's theory of control. In this context, the papers of this special issue are then introduced.
The thesis of this article is that in general where most other workers were quickly and easily proletarianized, physicians - through the use of a variety of tactics at the disposal of some elite groups - have, until now, been able to postpone or minimize this process in their own case. Now, as a result of the bureaucratization which is being forced on medical practice as a consequence of the logic of capitalist expansion, physicians are slowly being reduced to a proletarian function, and their formerly self-interested activities subordinated to the broader requirements of the capitalist control of highly profitable medical production.
The most important health-care development of the day is the recent, relatively unheralded rise of a huge new industry that supplies health-care services for profit. Proprietary hospitals and nursing homes, diagnostic laboratories, home-care and emergency-room services, hemodialysis, and a wide variety of other services produced a gross income to this industry last year of about $35 billion to +40 billion. This new "medical-industrial complex" may be more efficient than its nonprofit competition, but it creates the problems of overuse and fragmentation of services, overemphasis on technology, and "cream-skimming," and it may also exercise undue influence on national health policy. In this medical market, physicians must act as discerning purchasing agents for their patients and therefore should have no conflicting financial interests. Closer attention from the public and the profession, and careful study, are necessary to ensure that the "medical-industrial complex" puts the interest of the public before those of its stockholders.
Health and Health Care in the United States: Origins and Dynamics
- Light D. W.
Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Reconfiguration of Medical Knowledge
- Timmermans S.