Influence of U.S. Medical Profession
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The unprecedented influence exerted by the medical profession in America can be understood in terms of the conflict perspective. Physicians dominate subordinate groups through power and coercion. Physicians enjoy a high degree of autonomy and dominance in their profession that places the health care consumer in a position of disadvantage. The medical profession has led the public to believe that health depends primarily on intervention by the doctor and that the essential requirement for health is the early discovery of disease. Physicians tend to view natural processes as medical disorders and to favor highly technical surgical procedures over less invasive methods. As a result, the critical roles of nutrition, environment, and personal behavior are marginalized. Failure to empower the patient in the control of disease has had a disproportionately negative effect on women, minorities, and the elderly as the medical profession, still dominated by white males, clings to the elitist attitude that the doctor knows best. From its beginnings, the medical profession has benefitted from relentless legislative lobbying by the American Medical Association (AMA). By the beginning of the twentieth century, the AMA had succeeded in getting states to outlaw the activities of competing health practitioners (e.g., midwives and herbalists). Most of the practitioners of the competing health fields were women or minorities. When all fifty states later adopted stringent licensing law
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ical decisionmaking. In order to diagnose and treat disease, physicians must draw conclusions based on available evidence and precedence in the field of medicine. Unlike the nursing and other allied health professions which base their judgments largely on scientific research, physicians are taught to place an inordinate value on their own personal experience and that of their peers: "This, combined with the limitations of available scientific research, largely explains the vast differences among doctors in diagnosis and treatment . . . " Often, even panels of medical specialists fail to agree on the appropriateness of certain treatments, leading to a high degree of variation in the rates for medical procedures. For instance, rates for hysterectomies range from 20 percent in some communities to 70 percent in others.
One of the values that physicians learn in medical school is to distrust natural bodily functions. Thus doctors are apt to intervene extensively in natural processes such as pregnancy, menopause, and aging. In addition, doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for common disorders such as colds or fevers that could be allowed to run their course without jeopardizing the safety of the patient.
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Approximate Word count = 1285
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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