Medical Dominance, Doctor-Patient Relationship and Deviant Behavior
When we are sick, most of the people will go to hospital and seek help from doctors, because they have professional medical knowledge to help us cope with the diseases. Moreover, they are the important professions in the society, as everyone may get sick and they are the only one to help us relieve the pain. Therefore, this thought give rise to medical dominance over patients, other health care occupations and the whole society, resulting in an imbalance social power.
Firstly, whenever we are born or died, only doctors can be the one to certificate our birth and death. As everyone needs to experience these two stages, we can only take orders from them and then this doubtless increases the medical power for doctors. Secondly, most of the specialized services need the referral from general practitioner, since they serve as the first point of contact with patients; they own the right of approval over other health professions. Finally, doctors are eligible to order a prescription for sick person; they have legitimated control over us and the society. All these things show that doctors are in superiority over other occupations. However, I think this phenomenon is unfair and doctors should not hold too much medical autonomy in case the overuse of power occurred. Sometimes when I watched the newspaper, there is news about the professional misconduct of doctors, for example, inappropriate sexual contact with patents, illegal or unethical prescribing, inappropriate issuing of medical certificates or keeping of medical records and so on. According to BBC news dated 5 December 2007, a top Indian doctor sought over illegal infant scans for patient, in order to let the patient knows the gender of the baby. However, medically-assisted sex selection is illegal in India to avoid abortion of girls as Indians often view a boy is superior to a girl. This reveals that doctors will also make use of their medical knowledge and power to break the law deliberately.
In short, medical
Firstly, whenever we are born or died, only doctors can be the one to certificate our birth and death. As everyone needs to experience these two stages, we can only take orders from them and then this doubtless increases the medical power for doctors. Secondly, most of the specialized services need the referral from general practitioner, since they serve as the first point of contact with patients; they own the right of approval over other health professions. Finally, doctors are eligible to order a prescription for sick person; they have legitimated control over us and the society. All these things show that doctors are in superiority over other occupations. However, I think this phenomenon is unfair and doctors should not hold too much medical autonomy in case the overuse of power occurred. Sometimes when I watched the newspaper, there is news about the professional misconduct of doctors, for example, inappropriate sexual contact with patents, illegal or unethical prescribing, inappropriate issuing of medical certificates or keeping of medical records and so on. According to BBC news dated 5 December 2007, a top Indian doctor sought over illegal infant scans for patient, in order to let the patient knows the gender of the baby. However, medically-assisted sex selection is illegal in India to avoid abortion of girls as Indians often view a boy is superior to a girl. This reveals that doctors will also make use of their medical knowledge and power to break the law deliberately.
In short, medical