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Book No. – 24 (Sociology)
Book Name – The Social System
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1. THE FUNCTIONAL SETTING OF MEDICAL PRACTICE AND THE CULTURAL TRADITION
2. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE
3. THE SITUATION OF MEDICAL PRACTICE
3.1. The Situation of the Patient
3.2. The Situation of the Physician
4. THE FUNCTIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INSTITUTIONAL PATTERN OF MEDICAL PRACTICE
5. SOME SPECIAL PROBLEMS
6. SOME THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS
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Social Structure and Dynamic Process: The Case of Modern Medical Practice
Chapter – 10
Table of Contents
- The analysis has followed a long and complicated course, focusing on deriving structural outlines of the social system from the action frame of reference.
- The analysis has also involved examining the central place of patterns of value-orientation in the social structure and the motivational mechanisms of social processes.
- Additionally, the involvement of cultural patterns, other than value-orientation, in the social system has been considered.
- To illustrate the empirical relevance of this abstract analysis, the author has chosen modern medical practice as a key example.
- Modern medical practice has been of long-standing interest to the author, who has a greater command of empirical material in this field than most others.
- The medical field provides an excellent opportunity to show the interrelations of the principal elements of the social system reviewed earlier.
- The medical profession is centered around a highly distinctive cultural tradition and aspects of modern science, which provide the focus of medical activities.
- There are important problems related to the institutionalization of such a cultural tradition, which fits into the functional context of the health problem in all societies.
- Medical practice is specially organized relative to distinctive role patterns and value-orientations in modern society.
- The therapeutic process plays a key role in addressing problems of deviance and social control.
- Analyzing the motivational processes in medical practice offers insights that extend far beyond this field, shedding light on the general motivational balance of the social system.
THE FUNCTIONAL SETTING OF MEDICAL PRACTICE AND THE CULTURAL TRADITION
- Medical practice is primarily oriented toward coping with disturbances to health, focusing on illness or sickness.
- Traditionally, the emphasis has been on treatment or therapy, addressing cases that have already developed a pathological state and attempting to restore health or normality.
- Recently, there has been an increasing focus on preventive medicine, aiming to control the conditions that produce illness.
- Health is closely tied to the functional prerequisites of the social system, as illness impacts the ability to effectively perform social roles.
- If illness is controllable, there is a functional interest in minimizing it, as a high incidence of illness is dysfunctional for society.
- Premature death before the individual can play out their full social roles represents a partial loss of the societal investment in child-rearing, socialization, and training.
- While illness may have a natural phenomenon aspect, many illnesses are influenced by motivational factorsaccessible in action terms.
- Differential exposure to injuries or infections is often motivated, and unconscious desires to be injured or fall ill have been demonstrated.
- The field of psycho-somatic illness and mental disease show the connection between illness and motivated behavior.
- Earlier medical views sought to reduce illness to a physiological and biological level, but modern medicine recognizes the relevance of motivational factors.
- The conceptual framework of psycho-somatic illness challenges older biological models, with potential for broader application in social action beyond the medical field.
- Illness is not just an external danger to ward off but an integral part of social equilibrium.
- Illness can be a response to social pressures, a way to evade social responsibilities, or have positive functional significance.
- Illness is a state of disturbance in the functioning of both the biological system and the personal and social adjustments of the individual.
- Medical practice, as a “mechanism” in the social system, involves institutionalized roles that will be analyzed later.
- Modern medical practice is organized around applying scientific knowledge to health and disease control, making science a unique cultural phenomenon.
- The application of science in medicine is a recent development, only a little over a century old in the modern West.
- Treatment of illness as a problem for applied science is not a given; historically, illness was often interpreted in supernatural terms, with magical treatments seen as appropriate.
- In non-literate societies, there was empirical lore, but magic dominated the treatment of illness.
- Even in more developed societies like traditional China or the Middle Ages, health issues were often approached through magical or superstitious means.
- Despite the institutionalization of scientific medicine, there remains a significant presence of health superstition in popular culture, such as patent medicines and home remedies.
- Some religious groups, like Christian Science, include a religious approach to health as part of their doctrine, offering an alternative to conventional medical practices.
- There are also various cults offering health treatments, blending scientifically verifiable elements with pseudo-science.
- Institutionalization of science within the medical profession itself is incomplete, with resistance to accepting important scientific advances.
- Classic examples include the opposition to Pasteur by the French Academy of Medicine and the resistance to Lister’s introduction of surgical asepsis.
- The concept of “laudable pus” exemplifies a medical superstition that was once widely accepted.
- There is significant involvement of expressive symbolism in medical practice, though a detailed analysis will be addressed later.