Changing the Structure of Medical Discourse
Implications of Cross-National Comparisons
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2545546 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Howard Waitzkin (0000-0001-5084-6117, corresponding author), Theron Britt |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 436 |
| Publication date | 1989-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Health and Social Behavior (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-1465 • E-ISSN: 2150-6000 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2136991 |
| PMID | 2600386 |
| OpenAlex | W2318659687 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 12 |
In the discourse of medical encounters, social problems arise frequently. Such problems typically derive from work and economic insecurity, family life and gender roles, aging, and conditions that foster substance use or other self-destructive behavior. The structure of medical discourse tends to marginalize the social issues that generate personal troubles in everyday life. Long-range strategies to alter medical discourse aim toward basic modifications of power and finance in the larger society of which medicine is a part; such strategies seek to change the contextual issues that create personal troubles on the individual level. As shown by the examples of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, and China, social revolution does not necessarily resolve the micro-level contradictions of the doctor-patient relationship. In contrast, the Cuban revolution apparently has succeeded in transforming both the context and the structure of medical encounters. Short-range strategies in countries such as the United States involve more direct ways in which patients and doctors can alter their communication. These alterations involve reducing devices of language that maintain professional dominance, avoiding the medicalization of nonmedical problems, attempting not to marginalize contextual issues, and encouraging active attempts to change social conditions that generate personal troubles
Context (archaeology) · Dominance (genetics) · Everyday life · Medicalization · Personal life · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Psychiatry · Social structure · Sociology · Cultural Competency in Health Care · Empathy and Medical Education · Ethics in medical practice · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
The Wordless Nothing”
Slaves, Revolutions, Embargoes, and Needles
Narrative strategies in medical discourse
Cultural Integrity in Non-Traditional Societies
Curing and Caring
Social research in health and the American sociopolitical context
Processing narratives of self-destructive behavior in routine medical encounters
Social Origins of Distress and Disease
The exploitation of illness in capitalist society
The Silent World of Doctor and Patient
Medical Care and Health under State Socialism
The Sociological Imagination
Ambulatory medical care in the People's Republic of China
Latent functions of the sick role in various institutional settings
Social Security and Medicine in the USSR
The Barefoot Doctors
The Health of China
The Political Unconscious
Information Giving in Medical Care
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
| Citation span | 1993 - 2011 (19) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |