Objectives: To analyze how doctors and health officials contributed to the construction of technical-philosophical guidelines that generated high levels of medicalization at the micro-social level in the basic health services in Brazil

Tesser, C

English

University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico
UNM Digital Repository
English Latin American Social Medicine
12-3-2008
Social Medicalization (ll): Biomedical Limitations
and Proposals for Basic Care in the Clinics
C Tesser
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/lasm_cucs_en
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Recommended Citation
Tesser, C. "Social Medicalization (ll): Biomedical Limitations and Proposals for Basic Care in the Clinics." (2008).
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/lasm_cucs_en/114
DOCUMENT CUCS # 44B 
 
ISCE200610(20)Tesser    (EA) 
 
Tesser C. Medicalização social (II): limites biomédicos e propostas para a 
clínica na atenção básica. [Medicalización social (II): límites biomédicos y 
propuestas para la clínica en la atención básica]. [Social Medicalization (ll): 
Biomedical Limitations and Proposals for Basic Care in the Clinics]. 
Interface-Comunic,Saúde,Educ (Botucato, Brasil) 2006 September-
December; 10(20):347-362. 
Objectives: To analyze how doctors and health officials contributed to the 
construction of technical-philosophical guidelines that generated high levels of 
medicalization at the micro-social level in the basic health services in Brazil. 
Methodology: Interpretive Analysis 
Results: This article discusses the limitations of the biomedical 
knowledge/practices and their influence on the creation of autonomy in the users. 
The knowledge and practices considered are related to prevention and 
therapeutics. For the author, social medicalization destroys autonomy in the 
individual health-sickness process and it generates an infinite demand on health 
services. This significant increase in demand is a challenge in Brazil for the 
United System of Health (Sistema Unico de Salud). 
The author suggests, among other things, the systemization of diagnostics and 
its ontological risk; fighting authoritarianism and the obsession with disease 
control by the doctor; bio-medical dogmatism and the tendency to prioritize 
therapeutics as a treatment. 
Conclusions:  The author concludes that the technological interventions of bio-
medical knowledge and its cognitive operations contribute little to the autonomy 
of the patients. Face to face with these limitations, he suggests a review of the 
meaning of bio-medical knowledge and the “healing” function of health teams, as 
a mission to reconstruct individual autonomy and to take preventative health 
measures in the face of lived events and illness diagnosis. 
 


Social Medicalization (ll): Biomedical Limitations and Proposals for Basic Care in the Clinics

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Social Medicalization (ll): Biomedical Limitations and Proposals for Basic Care in the Clinics

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