Imber Trusting Doctors

The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-2889-0
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten

For more than a century, the American medical profession insisted that doctors be rigorously trained in medical science and dedicated to professional ethics. Patients revered their doctors as representatives of a sacred vocation. Do we still trust doctors with the same conviction? In Trusting Doctors, Jonathan Imber attributes the development of patients' faith in doctors to the inspiration and influence of Protestant and Catholic clergymen during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He explains that as the influence of clergymen waned, and as reliance on medical technology increased, patients' trust in doctors steadily declined.

Trusting Doctors discusses the emphasis that Protestant clergymen placed on the physician's vocation; the focus that Catholic moralists put on specific dilemmas faced in daily medical practice; and the loss of unchallenged authority experienced by doctors after World War II, when practitioners became valued for their technical competence rather than their personal integrity. Imber shows how the clergy gradually lost their impact in defining the physician's moral character, and how vocal critics of medicine contributed to a decline in patient confidence. The author argues that as modern medicine becomes defined by specialization, rapid medical advance, profit-driven industry, and ever more anxious patients, the future for a renewed trust in doctors will be confronted by even greater challenges.

Trusting Doctors provides valuable insights into the religious underpinnings of the doctor-patient relationship and raises critical questions about the ultimate place of the medical profession in American life and culture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Imber, Jonathan B.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizinische Ethik
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface: A Sociological Perspective xi

Introduction xvii

Part One: Religious Foundations of Trust in Medicine

Chapter 1: Protestantism, Piety, and Professionalism 3

Chapter 2: The Infl uence of Catholic Perspectives 22

Chapter 3: The Scientifi c Challenge to Faith 43

Chapter 4: Public Health, Public Trust, and the Professionalization of Medicine 65

Part Two: Beyond the Golden Age of Trust in Medicine

Chapter 5: The Growth of Popular Distrust in Medicine 107

Chapter 6: The Evolution of Bioethics 130

Chapter 7: Anxiety in the Age of Epidemiology 144

Chapter 8: Trust and Mortality 167

Acknowledgments 197

Appendix 1: Extant Addresses, Sermons, and Eulogies by Clergymen 201

Appendix 2: Philadelphia Medical Sermons 208

Appendix 3: Long Island College Hospital Commencements, 1860-1899 210

Notes 213

Index 265

Über Autor(innen)

Jonathan B. Imber is the Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics and professor of sociology at Wellesley College. He is the author of Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine.