Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

No topic is more central to a general understanding of medicine in modern society than the patient-physician relationship. Few topics have so actively focused the attention of social scientists, the thinking public, and medical/health practitioners. No other topic is so closely keyed to the emergence in the 1950s of medical sociology as a distinct, important, and very sizable field of research, teaching, and public policy relevance in sociology. In trying to capture and describe the patient-physician relationship a good starting point is to think of it as generically a helping relationship: one person helping another. The physician as a trained professional possesses resources – knowledge, skills, and experience – from which the patient can benefit. Further, the physician is committed to the well-being of the patient – not unlike the stance of a parent toward their child. Reciprocally, the patient depends upon the expertise and trustworthiness of the physician. Three stages have marked the sociological study of the patient-physician relationship since the 1950s. Stage 1 predominated from 1950 to 1965. It was guided by the conceptions of Talcott Parsons and the functionalist theory that prevailed in Parsonian thought and in sociological theory more generally. Stage 2 prevailed from 1965 to 1985. It directed a trenchant critique toward the Parsonian model; its theoretical orientation ... log in or subscribe to read full text