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This paper reviews the author's experience in becoming a medical sociologist before the field had become formalized. The contributions to medical sociology of sociologist Selden D. Bacon and physician and medical educator William R. Willard are described. The relationship of medical sociology to medical behavioral science, as experienced at the University of Kentucky, is discussed. Finally, the thesis of the author's 1957 paper on the nature and status of medical sociology is re-examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that children, as an important social group, repay study in connection with the sociology of health and illness. The paper outlines the neglect of children within medical sociology and goes on to open up a discussion towards a sociology of child health. The paper makes three main points. First, consideration of the case of health and illness helps understanding of children's social positioning as a minority group. Secondly, children present a clear case for considering people as embodied health care actors. Thirdly, taking account of children in the sociology of health requires rethinking the division of labour and inter-generational relationships within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While sociologists earlier this century often used insights derived from psychoanalytic theory in their writings, contemporary sociology has largely tended to ignore this body of work. This is as true of medical sociologists as it is of others, despite the fact that the 'founding father' of medical sociology, Talcott Parsons, used psychoanalytic perspectives extensively in his theorising on the social aspects of medicine and health. In this paper I make a case for a return to a medical sociology that incorporates understandings of subjectivity derived from psychoanalytic writings, with particular reference to the medical encounter and the illness experience. The paper begins with an overview of psychoanalytic sociology. I go on to review the major insights Parsons developed in his writings and the work of other writers who have more recently used psychoanalytic theory productively in theorising the sociocultural dimensions of medicine and health care. The paper concludes with some thoughts about future directions for taking up the psychoanalytic perspective in the sociology of health and illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘I’ll tell you what suits me best if you don’t mind me saying’: ‘lay participation’ in health-careIncreasing ‘lay participation’ in healthcare has become a popular notion in recent years and is generally considered to be a good thing in both nursing and wider policy circles. Yet despite the widespread acceptance of this overall idea, there is a dearth of theorising in this area. This has resulted in a lack of conceptual clarity which has not only hamstrung the development of empirical work in the field, but has also led to a tendency by both nurses and policy-makers to assume that greater ‘lay participation’ in health will lead to a concomitant increase in lay power vis-à-vis health professionals. The data presented in this paper indicate that this is, at best, an over-simplistic assumption and, at worst, an erroneous one. Drawing on sociological theories of the division of labour, I suggest that one way in which we might begin to clarify our thinking in this area is by differentiating between the ‘role’ and ‘task’ components of ‘lay participation’. I illustrate my argument with reference to two separate ethnographic studies undertaken between 1994 and 1998 in which participation at the level of the individual was examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that two models of illness can be identified within Parsons's paradigm--a structural model focusing on illness as incapacity for rle performance and a psychodynamic model focusing on illness as motivated deviance. Medical sociology, it will be said, has overlooked the psychodynamic or deviance model while recognizing and criticizing the structural or incapacity model under the misplaced label of deviance. It will further be ventured that while some elements of these two models can easily be fitted into a conservative view of medical practice, other elements are more difficult to reconcile with conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The designation 'sociology of health' or 'medical anhropology/sociology' indicates, at best, only the field and not the peculiarities of the field. As a consequence much work in this sub-discipline is of the genre, 'Sociology/Anthropology: Case Study Illness (or Health)'. This paper attempts to regroup the contributions made in this field in order to demonstrate the utility of establishing the specificities of the sub-discipline 'sociology/anthroplogy of illness'. Such an exercise would also provide us with a consistent framework for formulating health policies as well as for appreciating the reasons why WHO's blueprint of 'Health for All' and China's 'Barefoot Doctor' programme ran into difficulties. Furthermore, a systematic pursuit of the specificities of sociology/anthropology of illness would also force us to mutate our understanding of at least a few received formulations on the sociology/anthropology of deviance. professions, and even of tradition and modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a revision of the address given upon receipt of the Leo G. Reeder Award for distinguished Scholarship in Medical Sociology. It was presented on August 19, 1987 to the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association during its annual meeting held in Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]