The Changing Face of Medicine: Women Doctors and the Evolution of Health Care in America

[Excerpt] This book is a case study of one profession that plays a key role in the health care sector, which now represents about one seventh of the U.S. economy. It examines the most dramatic demographic change in this sector in the last century. But the issues we raise are likely to be of interest more broadly for what they say about the changing roles of women in contemporary society. Women\u27s entry into medicine is taken as dramatic evidence that the barriers to opportunity for women are rapidly falling in America. Does the experience of female physicians to date bear out this optimistic view? An alternative view is that gender roles remain deeply entrenched in our institutions and culture. Specifically, the gender division of household labor continues to constrain the choices of all women. The trade-offs between work and family may be clearest in the most demanding professions, such as law and medicine, which require a high degree of professional devotion. Our study builds on the fine histories of women in medicine written by Walsh, Morantz-Sanchez, and More. The analysis presented here focuses on the period since 1970, thus complementing the important studies of Bowman and colleagues and Bickel. Lorber examined the experiences of the generation of women who pioneered the transformation of the profession. With the benefit of additional decades of perspective, we are in a position to examine whether the role of gender in medicine is changing

Journal Rankings in Sociology: Using the H Index with Google Scholar

This paper proposes using a new metric, h, and new data, drawn from Google Scholar, for ranking sociology journals. This approach is more comprehensive in several ways than the commonly used “journal impact factor.” It includes a longer time-frame and draws on a broader data base. It provides editors and prospective authors with a more informative picture of the strengths and weaknesses of different journals. Moreover, readily available software enables do-it-yourself assessments of journals. While the position of individual journals varies with the new measure, a clear hierarchy of journals remains no matter what assessment metric is used

Interdisciplinarity in Recently Founded Academic Journals

Despite the substantial growth of research interest on interdisciplinary collaboration and intellectual exchange, relatively little attention has focused on interdisciplinarity in the context of the academic journal system. In this paper, we ask a series of questions about peer-reviewed, academic journals which aim to span disciplinary boundaries. Data on a total of 789 journals established in 2008 were culled from Ulrich’s Periodicals and classified into discipline-based and interdisciplinary journals based on their mission statements. Principal findings: Roughly 25 percent of peer-reviewed journals established in 2008 claimed interdisciplinarity as part of their mission; Interdisciplinarity varies substantially by primary subject classification, from less than 10 percent in mathematics and physics to a majority of journals in public health and communications; Despite the prominence of biology and biomedical fields in discussions of interdisciplinarity, few of the new journals in these fields are interdisciplinary in focus. Paradoxically, many interdisciplinary journals are highly specialized; that is, while they span more than one field or one approach (basic research, clinical applications), their span of inquiry needs to be understood as focused on a highly delimited topic area. A typology of six types of interdisciplinary journals emerges from the data. While some high-status interdisciplinary journals, eg Science and Nature, are tremendously valuable in facilitating cross-disciplinary communication, the proliferation of comprehensive interdisciplinary journals would most likely hinder rather than facilitate scholarly communication

A Global Turn in Sociology: Approaching Social Problems from an International Vantage Point

In this paper we make the case that a “global turn” in sociology is in order, building on the arguments advanced in David A. Smith’s SSSP Presidential Address. The emergence of global social problems, and the internationalization of social protests, underscore the importance of examining the experiences of countries outside the borders of the United States. Some issues will be fruitfully examined from a global perspective, while others may benefit from a more comparative approach. Empirically, the paper documents the extent to which Social Problems topics, authors and readers were international in scope during the period 2010-2019. Articles appearing in the American Sociological Review and the American Journal of Sociology are also examined for purposes of comparison. In addition, the content of fifteen leading social problems textbooks is analyzed. The data suggest that, while there is has been a significant emphasis on US authors and US topics in Social Problems, there is nonetheless a significant international and interdisciplinary audience for research published in this area. Textbooks on social problems, with several notable exceptions, typically relegate international issues to a restricted set of topic areas, such as the environment, climate change and health care. Our findings suggest that too great a focus on the US experience may constrain the sociological imagination and result in a limited sociological toolkit that is ill-suited for understanding the challenges facing contemporary societies. The article concludes with a discussion of the obstacles that need to be surmounted in order to advance a more international approach to social problems