Table of Contents

Part 1 The social context of health and illness
A very brief history of medicine and society
Introduction
1900 - the dawn of the twentieth century
First World War: 1914-1918
1918-1939
Second World War 1939-1945
1945 to the 21st century
Costs and benefits of 20th century medical innovation
Health inequalities
Medical transformations
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Defining the doctor′s remit
Introduction
Diagnosis: legitimate and illegitimate illness
Treating diagnosed disease
Defining death
Doing death
Defining doctors as special healers
Overlap with other professionals′ work
Specialization to the point of incoherence?
Medicine′s place in society
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Defining health, defining disease
Introduction
Biomedical disease model
Limitations of the biomedical model
Defining health
Lay understandings of health
Dimensions of lay models of health
The context of health
Biomedical disease and the value of health
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Part 2 Getting ill, being ill
The social causes of disease
Introduction
Class, ill health and industrial revolution
Social class and inequality
Public policy approaches to inequality
Mechanisms causing health inequalities by class
Ethnicity and inequality
Age and gender
Tackling health inequalities
Future prospects
International health inequalities
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Risk, choice and lifestyle
Introduction
Individuals and their behaviours
Risk taking and thrill seeking
Risky sex and gay men
Prejudice and blame
Cousin marriage and congenital problems
Risk and preventative medicine
New risks, new diseases - we′re all patients now?
Risk, lifestyle medicine - what next?
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Experiencing illness
Introduction
The sick role
Sickness as deviance
Stigma and illness
Illness as failure
Biographical disruption and illness narratives
Autopathography
Remaking lives?
Further reading
Revision questions & Extension questions
Ill bodies in society
Introduction
Bodies in society
Embodied illness
Dualist thinking
Bodies as machines
Suffering bodies
Impaired bodies and disability
Further reading
Revision & Extension questions
The process of disability
Introduction
Disability and the life course
Chronic illness, impairment and disability
The social model of disability
The cultural model of disability
Special or universal needs
Further reading
Revision & Extension questions
Part 3 Getting healthcare
Doctor-patient relationships
Introduction
Self-care
Appropriate consultation
Compliance, co-operation, conflict
Inverse care law
Evidence on medical consultations
Communicating across the divide
Co-operation and challenge
Further reading
Revision & Extension questions
The healthcare organization
Introduction
What′s so special about the NHS?
Socialized medicine
Insurance system
Pluralist socialized system
Evaluating the NHS
Reforming the NHS
Clinical governance
Medical dominance
The role of the hospital
Commercial and industrial interests in the NHS
The context of care
Further reading
Revisions & extension questions
Challenges to medicine
Introduction
Changing medical practice
Disappearing doctors, disappearing patients
Doctors′ difficulties
Regulating medicine
Reform from within
Non-human threats
Prospects
Further reading
Revision & Extension questions
Conclusion
Introduction
Change and continuity
Effective care: competing priorities
The politics of communication
Uncertainty
Context

About the Author

Hannah Bradby's research on how ethnicity and racism intervene in the social relations of health has been published in various journals including 'Social Science and Medicine' and 'Sociological Research Online'. She co-edits the journal 'Ethnicity and Health' and is the 'Sociology of Health and Illness' monograph series editor. Hannah has taught both medics and sociologists at the University of Warwick since 2000, employing various representations of health, illness and suffering including written (memoire, letters, reportage, fiction, clinical notes, empirical research) and spoken forms (evidence from clinicians, patients and former patients, in various languages, and sometimes mediated by trained interpreters). She has worked on the core medical school curriculum and special study modules and has collaborated with students to publish books of their own sociological work, both written and photographic.

Reviews

Provides a sophisticated introduction to the main issues in medical sociology. It is written in an accessible manner, making good use of examples and of questions that encourage the reader to reflect on the material that is presented. It gives a thoughtful and thorough account to provide advanced understanding - an excellent volume and one that I strongly recommend
Professor James Nazroo, Sociology
The University of Manchester Hannah Bradby has written an introduction to medical sociology that resonates with the lives and concerns of medical students. She provides a sociological lens through which they can critically examine the organization, rituals, practices and evidence base of modern medicine. This book expands horizons by turning attention from illness to health, from high technology to human experience and from diagnosis and treatment to health outcomes
Professor Gary Albrecht
University of Illinois at Chicago, USA and University of Leuven, Belgium Hannah Bradby′s Medical Sociology: An Introduction pulls together a wealth of material on social aspects of medicine in society. The book combines cogent discussion with summaries, further reading and relevant questions. Essential for medical students and others studying health and illness, this lively text is set to become a market leader in its field
Mike Bury
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Royal Holloway, University of London