In this final chapter in the Health series the main focus is on the role of health professionals in society, as seen through the lens of four sociological perspectives:
• Functionalist, with the main focus on the role of health systems and health professionals.
• Marxist, looking at medicine in terms of its production and consumption and how it operates as a system of political and ideological social control.
• Weberian where the emphasis is on the role of status groups and hierarchies.
• Feminist, where the focus is on women as objects of medical attention.
The final section examines the rise of complementary / alternative medicine, their challenge to – and the critical response of – conventional forms of medicine.
As per, there are a few nondescript printer’s marks visible (but nothing too distracting) and a single picture (pre-copyright release) with the usual literal caption for which I take no responsibility because, in the prescient words of Shaggy “It wasn’t me”.