Role of medicine, professions, and global health industry

👤 Parsons (1951): doctors have legitimate power due to expertise, benefiting society.
- Ignores inequalities in treatment.
👤 Weber (1978): doctors achieve “professional closure” with monopoly over medical knowledge.
- Alternative therapies challenge this monopoly.
👤 Navarro (1983): medicine serves capitalism by keeping workers productive and masking social causes of illness.
- Overlooks how genuine care can be provided.
👤 Oakley (1982) and 👤 Ehrenreich (1974): medicine is patriarchal, controlling women’s bodies and medicalising childbirth.
- Feminists note growing female presence in medicine.
👤 Foucault (1973): “clinical gaze” turns patients into objects of medical scrutiny and surveillance.
- Medical records and data also improve care.
👤 Conrad (2002): Big Pharma promotes medicalisation and “disease mongering” to expand markets.
- Drug innovations have improved quality of life

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