A Critical Analysis of the Medical Model As Used in the Study of Pregnancy and Childbirth

One key concept in medical sociology/anthropology for the analysis of approaches to health and illness is the medical model. However, this medical model is not only applied at the analytical level, i.e. as a sociological tool, but it also appeals to health service providers at a practical level as a model of working practice. This paper challenges the uncritical use of the medical model by practitioners and social scientists alike. The purpose of this paper is to separate and analyse the three different levels of understanding expressed in any model of childbirth, whether medical or social: (1) the practical; (2) the ideological and (3) the analytical level. Social scientists are advised to reflect on the question: 'At what level am I using the medical model as a theoretical concept in my work?' This is necessary not only to avoid further confusion, but also to ensure that our sociological tools maintain their ability to analyse the social world appropriately, without becoming 'blunt' due to the uncritical use.Medical Sociology, Childbirth, Medical Model, Social Model, Midwifery, Pregnancy, Child Birth, Risk, Medicalisation.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: SOME MEDICAL-SOCIOLOGICAL, SOCIAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASPECTS

The COVID-19 pandemic is an extremely provocative and challenging topic for a widerange of multidisciplinary research. Including research in the fields of medical sociology,social epidemiology and political epidemiology. Areas that in our Republic are ratherneglected. In any case, unjustified. This statement certainly applies and to medical sociology,as a separate sociology in relation to general sociology. The COVID-19 pandemic on a globalscale has aroused very strong interest in its study from the scientific position of medicalsociology, most often in community, i. e. as a truly multidisciplinary approach, and with someclose special sociology, but also in multidisciplinary community with other scientific fields.Including epidemiology, i. e. social epidemiology and political epidemiology. In our country,a very small number of sociologists, through their research interest and engagement, are directand specialize (and) in different types of research in the field of medical sociology. Medicalsociology as a special sociology is also called as sociology of medicine, sociology of healthand diseases… In this text, as a combined approach from the sides of medical sociology,social epidemiology and political epidemiology, several selected aspects of the COVID-19pandemic will be research-analytically “illuminated”. Among other things, the aspects ofthe definition of health and disease, as basic notions in the field of medical sociology, then,the aspects of the treatment of public health, infectious diseases and the medical fields thatdeal with them, means the areas of preventive and preclinical medicine in terms of clinicalmedicine, the phenomenon of risk balancing and some others

Medical sociology and the biological body: where are we now and where do we go from here?

In this article I pose the question, 'where is the biological body in medical sociology today?' The first part of the article provides a selective corporeal balance sheet of where we are now in medical sociology, with particular reference to social constructionist and phenomenological approaches and their respective stances or takes on the (biological) body. The subsequent section considers where we might profitably be going in the future in terms of bringing the biological body (back) in, and the broader issues this raises for the sociological enterprise as a whole. Various problems associated with this evolving project and merits of other recent approaches, such as the sociology of translation, are considered. The article concludes with some further thoughts and reflections on these matters, including a revisiting of relations between the sociology of the body and medical sociology in the light of these debates

A Critical Analysis of the Medical Model as used in the Study of Pregnancy and Childbirth

One key concept in medical sociology/anthropology for the analysis of approaches to health and illness is the medical model. However, this medical model is not only applied at the analytical level, i.e. as a sociological tool, but it also appeals to health service providers at a practical level as a model of working practice. This paper challenges the uncritical use of the medical model by practitioners and social scientists alike. The purpose of this paper is to separate and analyse the three different levels of understanding expressed in any model of childbirth, whether medical or social: (1) the practical; (2) the ideological and (3) the analytical level. Social scientists are advised to reflect on the question: 'At what level am I using the medical model as a theoretical concept in my work?' This is necessary not only to avoid further confusion, but also to ensure that our sociological tools maintain their ability to analyse the social world appropriately, without becoming 'blunt' due to the uncritical use

Mosty zamiast murów – socjologia medycyny przykładem udanej (?) interdyscyplinarnej współpracy

Medical sociology has now become one of the most dynamic, resilient and promising subdisciplines of sociology. The purpose of the article is to present it as an interdisciplinary science, with a double frame of reference (sociology, medicine).While relating to the classical concept of R. Strauss (1957): sociology of/in medicine, authors raise the question of potential and successful cooperation between medical and sociological circles (sociology with medicine). In addition, a few sociomedical issues are discussed in order to illustrate the general problem.Socjologia medycyny (szerzej ujmowana jako socjologia zdrowia, choroby i medycyny) jest jedną z najbardziej dynamicznych, prężnie rozwijających się i obiecujących subdyscyplin socjologii ogólnej. Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie interdyscyplinarnego charakteru dziedziny funkcjonującej w po-dwójnym układzie odniesienia: socjologia ogólna - medycyna. Odwołując się do klasycznej koncepcji R. Straussa (1957): sociology in/of medicine, autorki rozpatrują kwestię potencjalnej, pomyślnej współpracy przedstawicieli środowisk medycznego i socjologicznego (sociology with medicine). Dla zobrazowania powyższych rozważań w pracy przedstawiono kilka zagadnień znajdujących się w obszarze badawczym socjologii medycyny

Jonathan Gabe, Lee F. Monaghan, Key Concepts in Medical Sociology

Compte-renduCompte rendu de l'ouvrage : Jonathan Gabe, Lee F. Monaghan (dir.), Key Concepts in Medical Sociology, Sage, coll. " Key Concepts ", 2013, 229 p., deuxième éd., EAN : 9780857024787.Maël Dieudonné, " Jonathan Gabe, Lee F. Monaghan, Key Concepts in Medical Sociology ", Lectures [En ligne], Les comptes rendus, 2013, mis en ligne le 06 septembre 2013. URL : http://lectures.revues.org/1204

Medical sociology, sociology of health or social medicine? : a comparative analysis between France and Brazil

O objetivo deste trabalho é esboçar um estudo comparativo da sociologia médica na França e no Brasil, aproveitando a ocasião proporcionada pelas trocas e a discussão entre sociólogos brasileiros e franceses, que partilham um interesse mútuo sobre os estudos de sociologia da medicina de um lado e, por outro, a abordagem sociológica construída por Pierre Bourdieu. Ele contém uma reflexão sobre o status da sociologia dentro do campo da saúde, baseada em uma revisão da literatura científica francesa, norte-americana, inglesa e brasileira. Por meio dos trabalhos publicados sobre a área médica, procuraremos esclarecer os modos específicos de abordar a saúde, a doença e a medicina em cada um dos países, discernir suas particularidades históricas e delinear as relações entre a sociologia da saúde e a sociologia em sentido largo. Percebemos uma confluência de fatores como o núcleo da formação da sociologia médica no Brasil: um projeto social de reforma por parte dos médicos higienistas, um projeto de institucionalização da disciplina pelos professores de Ciências Sociais nas faculdades de Medicina e uma reforma conservadora do ensino no momento de governos autoritários.This paper presents a comparative study on medical sociology in France and Brazil by means of exchanges and discussions among Brazilian and French sociologists who share mutual interests in medical sociology studies and in the sociological approach of Pierre Bourdieu. This manuscript contains a reflection on the status of medical sociology based on a literature review of the scientific French, North American, British and Brazilian production. Using published papers on the medical field, we sought to clarify the specific ways in which health, disease and medicine are approached in both countries; to discern their historical particularities; and to outline the relations between sociology of health and sociology in the broad sense of the word. We observed a confluence of factors, such as the basis of the formation of medical sociology in France as well as in Brazil: a reforming social project developed by public health doctors, a project developed by social sciences professors to institutionalize the discipline in medical schools, and a conservative reformulation of education during authoritarian governments

The concept of medicalisation reassessed : a response to Busfield

Joan Busfield’s (2017) reassessment of the concept of medicalisation is a welcome and timely contribution to a key issue within medical sociology, past and present. Not simply medical sociology however. Medicalisation indeed, as Conrad (2015) himself notes, now carries ‘analytical weight’ in a range of disciplines beyond sociology including history, anthropology, bioethics, economics, media studies and feminism. To this of course we may add engagements within medicine itself as well as the wider circulation of ‘medicalisation’ within popular culture if not public consciousness today as a commonly used if not abused term of reference, thereby rending medicalisation a victim of its own success perhaps. Hence debates in recent years as to whether or not medicalisation has outlived its usefulness as a concept, including its relationship to other newly developed concepts and ways of theorising these matters, in sociology and beyond (Bell & Figert, 2015a,b, 2014; Rose, 2007)

Dean Winternitz, Clinical Sociology and the Julius Rosenwald Fund

The earliest published statement of the value of clinical sociology was written by Milton C Winternitz, dean of the Yale School of Medicine from 1920 through 1935. This article presents Winternitz\u27s ideas about clinical sociology and discusses his unsuccessful pursuit of funds to establish a department of clinical sociology The article also introduces two documents written by Winternitz and correspondence from 1931 between Winternitz and Michael M. Davis, director of medical services for the Julius Rosenwald Fund