IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

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The Professionalization of Healthcare: Facing the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. Part I

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC15 Sociology of Health (host committee)
RC52 Sociology of Professional Groups

Language: English

Session Type: Oral

The professionalization of healthcare has been seen as one of the great developments over much of the past two centuries. Together with advances in medical science, it brought with it a belief in progress and a sense that human beings might lead longer and richer lives. However, following the 1960s/70s counter cultural critique, a series of well-publicized medical scandals, technological change, greater user engagement, a growing appreciation of the value of other forms of health work, and the intensification of organizational management, health professions from medicine to nursing in the modern world appear to be in retreat. Amongst other things, they seem to have lost public trust and have been ever more penned in by regulatory reform, which has increased their exposure to external criticism and control. Papers are welcomed on both theoretical and empirical aspects of the changes involved and the challenges that health professions now face in the twenty-first century. Are health professions best considered as problematic and perhaps counterproductive groups in the division of labour or are they still important saviours of humanity in an ever more complex world? What form might professionalization in healthcare most helpfully take in face of the changes that have occurred in the societies in which they are embedded?