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Some Problems in the Provision of Medical Services*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Oswald Hall
Oswald Hall*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

The machinery for providing medical services raises two kinds of problems for the sociologist. On the one hand these services involve various sorts of institutional structures, such as hospitals; these merit attention and analysis. On the other hand medical services involve a set of specialized occupations; these likewise merit study. These two classes of phenomena, that is, the social institution and the specialized occupation, represent two of the major subjects of present-day sociological investigation.

The machinery for providing medical services raises comparable problems for other branches of science. The biological and psychological sciences find many of their theoretical problems dictated by the practices current in the medical field. The financing of such services raises problems for the economist, and the control and distribution of such services are matters of concern for the political scientist. This paper can, therefore, at best deal only with one facet of a large field of inquiry.

In sociology in recent years a considerable body of literature has developed around the problem areas indicated above. Various parts of the work world have been explored in order to gain a better knowledge of work institutions, more specifically to understand them as going concerns. Concurrently many specialized occupations have been subjected to study, with the purpose of discovering the common characteristics of this feature of our society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , November 1954 , pp. 456 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1954

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Winnipeg, June 4, 1954.

References

1 The American Journal of Sociology for March, 1952, in its articles and reviews, illustrates the range of problems currently being explored.

2 Much of the theoretical discussion stems from Max Weber. See Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W., trs. and Eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York, 1946), especially chap. VIII.Google Scholar

3 Moore, W. E., Industrial Relations and the Social Order, revised ed. (New York, 1951), chap. VI.Google Scholar

4 Smith, Harvey L., “The Sociological Study of Hospitals” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1949).Google Scholar

5 Lentz, Edith, “The Nursing Profession: A Study of Change” (unpublished document, Cornell University).Google Scholar