Medical Power Flashcards
French and Raven: 5 bases of power within organisations
What are the 5 aspects of power? Relate this to power within medicine.
- legitimate = formal authority
- referent = ability to persuade/influence
- expert = possessing needed skills and experience
- reward = ability to give valued benefit
- coercive = punish/withhold rewards
What are the definitions of medical power?
- the ability to impose ones will on others even if they resist in some way
- the real of perceived ability or potential to bring about significant changes in peoples lives through ones actions -often seen as beneficial e.g. power to cure but there are risks
- the power to define illness/deviance and accordingly manage the ill and the deviant - especially relevant for mental illness e.g sectioning
What is medical dominance?
What is medical autonomy?
Medical dominance = the authority that the medical profession can exercise over others e.g. other occupations within the healthcare system, division of labour, patients or over society, through being cultural authorities in matter relating to health
Medical autonomy = the legitimated (i.e. publicly accepted) control that the medical profession exercises over the organisation and terms of its work
What are the 3 key examples of sociological concepts of the operation of power within medicine?
- socialisation into the role of the patient
- the ‘sick role’ and the social/professional role of the doctor
- medicalisation
Describe the 4 aspects of the sick role
- patient must want to get well as quickly as possible
- should seek professional advice and cooperate with the doctor
- Allowd to shed some normal activities and responsibilities
- regarded as being in need of care and unable to get better by his or her own decisions and will
What are the advantages of patient role/patient status?
official diagnosis/ label justifies taking on patient role
sympathy
sick pay
free prescriptions
insurance payments
may aid coping behaviour
offers a socially acceptable explanation for individual’s behaviour
What are the disadvantages of patient role /patient status?
major change in status from person to patient (e.g. epileptic, schizophrenic)
must accept the asymmetry of relationship with doctor
may be denied all the advantages
may not be able to get insurance, mortgage, employment
may be subject to automatic medical intervention
What are the social consequences of taking on sick role?
a disease has symptoms which must/can be managed or treated to restore normality:
- patient can expect/demad treatment
- healthcare system may be obliged to recognise/offer treatment
- healthcare system may be unable to satisfy demand
What are the 4 aspects of the professional role of the doctor?
What are the 3 rights that a doctor has?
- apply a high degree of skill and knowledge
- act for welfare of patient and community rather than for own self-interest, desire for money, advancement etc.
- be objective (don’t judge)
- Be guided by rules of professional practice
- granted right to examine patients physically and to enquire into intimate areas of physical and personal life
- granted considerable autonomy in professional practice
- occupies position of authority in relation to the patient
- What is socialisation?
- What is primary socialisation?
- What is secondary socialisation?
- What is anticipatory socialisation?
- What is patient socialisation?
- mechanisms by which people learn the rules, regulations and acceptable ways of behaving in the society or group they belong to
- occurs in the family, e.g. gender roles
- continues throughout life e.g school, peer group, occupational group
- where someones rehearses for future position e.g. applying to medical school
- learning to ‘correct’ behaviour as a patients and how to interact with health systems
Give examples of agents of socialisation for patients:
media lay referral system self-help groups handbooks hospital leaflets experience of healthcare system chronic illness expert patients
What is medicalisation?
Give 3 examples
a process by which non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical problems usually in terms of illness or disorder
- childbirth. Natural or medical?
- bad behaviour or ADHD?
- Obesity a disease (or disability)?
What are the characteristics of total institutions?
- all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under a single authority
- daily life is carried out in a group with others with scheduled activities
- there is a sharp distinction between the managers and the managed between whom there may be little communication
- there is an institutional perspective and therefore the assumption of an overall rational plan
What are the mechanisms used in institutions to facilitate management of inmates?
- physical and psychological reminders of a person’s identity are stripped by removing personal possessions and restricting privacy and individual responsibility
- information about the individual and the institution is controlled
- mobility is restricted
What are the effects of social institutions?
stress and anxiety
depersonalisation
institutionalisation patients become apathetic with an inability to undertake simple tasks or make decisions
