AP/SOSC 3113 6.00
Health Care Professions: Theories and Issues
This course explores the concept of “profession” in the context of health care work. It examines the role of the state, patriarchy and corporate interests in encouraging medical dominance, and in excluding other healers from the attainment of full professional status. It discusses how inequalities of class, gender and race are played out in health care structures. In addition, the course considers the challenges to medicine, such as the expansion of alternative medicine, the effects of restructuring, the legalization of some excluded health professions and the expansion of the area of practice of other health professions. It considers the application of the new managerialism and legislation on the prevailing power structures with particular reference to the blurring of professional boundaries, the potential increased control of management and the state over professional practice and the occupational health of health professionals.