SOC244H1 Chapter : Culture, health, and illness.docx
Document Summary
Doctors and their patients, even if they come from the sm social and cultural background view ill health in very different ways. Their perspectives are based on very different premises, employ a different system of proof, and assess the efficacy of treatment in a different way. The medical profession can be seen as a healing subculture wit its own world view. In the process medical education, students undergo a form of enculturation whereby they gradually acquire a perspective on ill health that will last throughout their professional life. Symptoms achieve their meaning in relation to physiological states, which are interpreted as the referents of the symptoms. Greater focus on the real" biology than the psychological or sociological. Traditional method was by listening to the patient"s symptoms and how they developed (the history), and then searching for objective physical signs (the examination). Increasingly though, modern medicine has come to rely on diagnostic tech to collect and measure clinical facts.
