Abstract
Health work takes place in multifaceted environments, with interactions between a range of professions, people and technologies and a complex division of labor. This chapter addresses the historical development and professionalization of the medical profession. It then explores the gendered division in health work, particularly between doctors and nurses, while also noting the increased blurring of professional jurisdictions in some contexts. The chapter draws on a case study of maternity work to highlight the impact of attitudes towards gender on health care work. The chapter concludes with a section on the everyday health work undertaken by non-professionals in daily life.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Allen, D., & Pilnick, A. (2005). Making connections: Health care as a case study in the social organisation of work. Sociology of Health and Illness, 27, 683–700.
Atkinson, P. (1997). The clinical experience: The construction and reconstruction of clinical reality. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Auerbach, D., Staiger, D., Muench, U., & Buerhaus, P. (2012). The nursing workforce: A comparison of three surveys. Nursing Economics, 3, 253–260.
Benoit, C., Wrede, S., Bourgeault, I., Sandall, J., De Vries, R., & van Teijlingen, E. (2005). Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: Midwifery as a touchstone. Sociology of Health and Illness, 27, 722–737.
Chamberlain, J. (2013). The sociology of medical regulation: An introduction. Dordrecht: Springer.
Dew, K., Chamberlain, K., Hodgetts, D., Norris, P., Radley, A., & Gabe, J. (2014). Home as a hybrid centre of medication practice. Sociology of Health and Illness, 36, 28–43.
Dingwall, R. (2008). Essays on professions. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Equal Opporunities Committee BMA (2009). Equality and diversity in UK medical schools. London: British Medical Association.
Evans, J. (2002). Cautious caregivers: Gender stereotypes and the sexualization of men nurses’ touch. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 40, 441–448.
Gibbons, L., Belizán, J., Lauer, J., Betrán, A., Merialdi, M., & Althabe, F. (2010). The global numbers and costs of additionally needed and unnecessary caesarean sections performed per year: Overuse as a barrier to universal coverage. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Goodwin, D. (2014). Decision-making and accountability: Differences of distribution. Sociology of Health and Illness, 36, 44–59.
Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jamous, H., & Peloille, B. (1970). Changes in the French university-hospital system. In J. Jackson (Ed.), Professions and professionalization (pp. 111–152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jutel, A. (2014). When the penny drops: Dagnosis and the transformative moment. In A. Jutel & K. Dew (Eds.), Social issues in diagnosis: An introduction for students and clinicians (pp. 78–92). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Kanji, Z., Ladhani, Z., & Dhamani, K. (2014). Nurses. In W. Cockerham, R. Dingwall, & S. Quah (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of health, illness, behavior, and society. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Lanceley, A., Savage, J., Menon, U., & Jacobs, I. (2008). Influences on multidisciplinary team decision-making. International Journal of Gynecological Cancer , 18, 215–222.
Larkin, G. (1983). Occupational monopoly and modern medicine. London:Tavistock Press.
Lowis, G., & McCaffery, P. (2000). Sociological factors affecting the medicalization of midwifery. In E. van Teijlingen, G. Lowis, P. McCaffery, & P. Maureen (Eds.), Midwifery and the medicalization of childbirth: Comparative perspectives. Huntingdon: Nova.
Mander, R., & Murphy-Lawless, J. (2013). The politics of maternity. London: Routledge.
McClean, S., & Shaw, A. (2005). From schism to continuum? The problematic relationship between expert and lay knowledge – an exploratory conceptual synthesis of two qualitative studies. Qualitative Health Research, 15, 729–749.
McDonnell, A., Goodwin, E., Kennedy, F., Hawley, K., Gerrish, K., & Smith, C. (2015). An evaluation of the implementation of Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) roles in an acute hospital setting. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 71, 789–799.
Meghen, K., Sweeney, C., Linehan, C., O’Flynn, S., & Boylan, G. (2013). Women in hospital medicine: Facts, figures and personal experiences. Irish Medical Journal, 106, 39–42.
Morrall, P. (2001). Sociology and nursing. London: Routledge.
Murray, S., & Elston, M. (2005). The promotion of private health insurance and its implications for the social organisation of health care: A case study of private sector obstetric practice in Chile. Sociology of Health and Illness, 27, 701–721.
Nomura, K., Yamazaki, Y., Gruppen, L., Horie, S., Takeuchi, M., & Illing, J. (2015). The difficulty of professional continuation among female doctors in Japan: A qualitative study of alumnae of 13 medical schools in Japan. BMJ Open, 5, e005845–e005845.
Ouwens, M., Wollersheim, H., Hermens, R., Huischer, M., & Grol, R. (2005). Integrated care programmes for chronically ill patients: A review of systematic reviews. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 17, 141–146.
Patkar, V., Acosta, D., Davidson, T., Jones, A., Fox, J., & Keshtgar, M. (2011). Cancer multidisciplinary team meetings: Evidence, challenges, and the role of clinical decision support technology. International Journal of Breast Cancer, 8, 1–7. doi:10.4061/2011/831605.
Pooler, J. (2010). Managing the diagnostic space in calls for help. In M. Büscher, D. Goodwin, & J. Mesman (Eds.), Ethnographies of diagnostic work: Dimensions of transformative practice (pp. 149–167). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pringle, R. (1998). Sex and medicine: Gender, power and authority in the medical profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sakala, C. (1993). Medically unnecessary caesarean section births: Introduction to a symposium. Social Science and Medicine, 37, 1177–1198.
Sandall, J. (2014). Midwives. In W. Cockerham, R. Dingwall, & S. Quah (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of health, illness, behavior, and society (pp. 1642–1645). Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Tully, E., & Mortlock, B. (2005). Professionals and practices. In K. Dew & P. Davis (Eds.), Health and society in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 130–145). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Weiss, G., & Lonnquist, L. (2012). The sociology of health, healing and illness, 7th edn. Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Williams, C. (2000). Alert assistants in managing chronic illness: The case of mothers and teenage sons. Sociology of Health and Illness, 22, 254–272.
Williams, G., Popay, J. (1994). Lay knowledge and the privilege of experience. In J. Gabe, D. Kelleher, & G. Williams (Eds.), Challenging medicine (pp. 118–139). London: Routledge.
Willis, E. (1983). Medical dominance: The division of labour in Australian health care. Sydney: George Allen and Unwin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dew, K., Scott, A., Kirkman, A. (2016). Health Care Work and Everyday Health Work. In: Social, Political and Cultural Dimensions of Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31508-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31508-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31506-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31508-9
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)