Lives in Medicine: Becoming and Being a Physician

Catalog description

This course applies a sociological approach to medical profession. Medical sociology emerged as a distinct field of study in the 1950s in part due to prominent studies of medical education such as The Student Physician by Robert K. Merton and Howard Becker's Boys in White. Since then, sociologists and other social scientists have written extensively about how issues of race, gender, aging and ethnicity are tied to issues of medical education, medical training, medical socialization and physician decision-making. Using a life course perspective, this course will examine how lives in medicine change over time; in particular, we'll study changing workforce patterns, physician satisfaction, and burnout. Other topics to be covered include contemporary ethical issues and alternative professional health careers. The course provides an overview of how medicine and medical practice have a profound influence on--and are influenced by--social, cultural, political and economic forces. In short, you'll become familiar with how scholars outside of medicine cast a sociological gaze on the profession. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course.