Medicine Books

Book Features

• Author: Peter Conrad
• Language: English
• ISBN10: 080188585X

Book Overview

>>>More than the previous half-century, the social terrain of well being and illness has been transformed. What had been once considered typical human events and typical human problems—birth, aging, menopause, alcoholism, and obesity—are now viewed as medical conditions. For much better or worse, medicine more and more permeates elements of day-to-day life.Creating on a lot more than 3 decades of investigation, Peter Conrad explores the changing forces behind this trend with situation studies of short stature, social anxiety, “male menopause,” erectile dysfunction, adult ADHD, and sexual orientation. He examines the emergence of and alterations in medicalization, the consequences of the expanding medical domain, and the implications for well being and society. He finds in latest developments—such as the expanding quantity of possible diagnoses and biomedical enhancements—the future course of medicalization. Conrad contends that the effect of medical experts on medicalization has diminished. As an alternative, the pharmaceutical and biotechnical industries, insurance companies and HMOs, and the patient as customer have turn into the key forces promoting medicalization. This thought-provoking research offers precious insight into not only how medicalization got to this point but also how it may possibly carry on to evolve. (2010)…