Contesting Illness

Contesting Illness
Author: Pamela Moss
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2008-02-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1442692057


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The relationship between power and illness is the subject of limited discussion despite it being one of the most important issues in health-related policies and services. In an effort to correct this, Contesting Illness engages critically with processes through which the meanings and effects of illness shape and are shaped by specific sets of practices. Featuring original contributions by researchers working in a number of disciplines, this collection examines intersections of power, contestation, and illness with the aid of various critical theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. The contributors explore experiences of illness, diagnosis, and treatment, and analyse wider discursive and policy contexts within which people become ill and engage with health care systems. Though each essay is unique in its approach, they are linked together by a shared focus on contestation as a conceptual tool in considering the relationship between power and illness. Rather than focus on a single example, the contributors address different contested illnesses (chronic fatigue syndrome and environmental illness, for instance) as well as the contested dimensions of illnesses that are accepted as legitimate such as cancer and autism. Contesting Illness offers valuable insights into the assumptions, practices, and interactions that shape illness in the twenty-first century. Contributors Jan Angus Pia H. Bülow Peter Conrad Joyce Davidson Helen Gremillion Maren Klawiter Joshua Kelley Steve Kroll-Smith Katherine Lippel Pamela Moss Michael Orsini Michael J. Prince Annie Potts Mary Ellen Purkis Sharon Dale Stone Cheryl Stults Katherine Teghtsoonian Jane M. Ussher Catherine van Mossel

Contested Illnesses

Contested Illnesses
Author: Phil Brown
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2011-12-26
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0520950429


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The politics and science of health and disease remain contested terrain among scientists, health practitioners, policy makers, industry, communities, and the public. Stakeholders in disputes about illnesses or conditions disagree over their fundamental causes as well as how they should be treated and prevented. This thought-provoking book crosses disciplinary boundaries by engaging with both public health policy and social science, asserting that science, activism, and policy are not separate issues and showing how the contribution of environmental factors in disease is often overlooked.

Contested Illness in Context

Contested Illness in Context
Author: Harry Quinn Schone
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100000693X


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What makes a disease real? Why is it that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia are doubted when they say they are in pain, and cannot access the same benefits of patient-hood that others can? What defines the limits of our belief and, ultimately, compassion, when it comes to disease? These are the questions approached in this book, which draws upon patients’ experiences and situates them among a diverse set of literatures, from the history and philosophy of medicine to the sociology of health and disease. The question of a patient’s identity and their understanding of disease is often assumed to emerge from their relationship with healthcare, but the case is made here that other, inter-personal factors are more salient. What a patient with a contested illness comes up against is not simply a medical categorisation – it is a prevailing notion of disease across society, and one they struggle to assimilate themselves into. Contested Illness in Context will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as the history and philosophy of medicine, the sociology of health and illness, medical anthropology, or disease and illness generally. It may also interest patients and doctors who struggle with difficult medical cases.

Divided Bodies

Divided Bodies
Author: Abigail A. Dumes
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2020-08-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1478007397


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While many doctors claim that Lyme disease—a tick-borne bacterial infection—is easily diagnosed and treated, other doctors and the patients they care for argue that it can persist beyond standard antibiotic treatment in the form of chronic Lyme disease. In Divided Bodies, Abigail A. Dumes offers an ethnographic exploration of the Lyme disease controversy that sheds light on the relationship between contested illness and evidence-based medicine in the United States. Drawing on fieldwork among Lyme patients, doctors, and scientists, Dumes formulates the notion of divided bodies: she argues that contested illnesses are disorders characterized by the division of bodies of thought in which the patient's experience is often in conflict with how it is perceived. Dumes also shows how evidence-based medicine has paradoxically amplified differences in practice and opinion by providing a platform of legitimacy on which interested parties—patients, doctors, scientists, politicians—can make claims to medical truth.

Sociologies of Disability and Illness

Sociologies of Disability and Illness
Author: Carol Thomas
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2017-09-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137020199


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This book critically compares conflicting perspectives and overlapping themes within the study of disability and illness across recent decades. With fresh interpretation of traditional theory in medical sociology and informed commentary on theoretical debates in disability studies, it is provocative reading for students and scholars in this field.

Contested Illness in Context

Contested Illness in Context
Author: HARRY. QUINN SCHONE
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2020-12-18
Genre:
ISBN: 9780367730017


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What makes a disease real? Why is it that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia are doubted when they say they are in pain, and cannot access the same benefits of patient-hood that others can? What defines the limits of our belief and, ultimately, compassion, when it comes to disease? These are the questions approached in this book, which draws upon patients' experiences and situates them among a diverse set of literatures, from the history and philosophy of medicine to the sociology of health and disease. The question of a patient's identity and their understanding of disease is often assumed to emerge from their relationship with healthcare, but the case is made here that other, inter-personal factors are more salient. What a patient with a contested illness comes up against is not simply a medical categorisation - it is a prevailing notion of disease across society, and one they struggle to assimilate themselves into. Contested Illness in Context will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as the history and philosophy of medicine, the sociology of health and illness, medical anthropology, or disease and illness generally. It may also interest patients and doctors who struggle with difficult medical cases.

The Western Disease

The Western Disease
Author: Claire Laurier Decoteau
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2021-06-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 022677225X


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"Autism has become an all-too-common diagnosis here in the United States. Typically diagnosed in early childhood, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is identified based on developmental delays in three areas: language, social skills, and particular behaviors. But what Americans know and think about autism is shaped by our social relationship to health, disease, and our country's medical system. The Western Disease explores the ways that Somali recent immigrants make sense of their children's diagnosis of autism. Having never heard of the disease before migrating to North America, they often determine that since autism doesn't exist in Somalia, it must be a Western disease. Many even believe it is Somalis' forced migration to North America that has rendered their children vulnerable to the development of autism. As Decoteau shows, autism--as a category, identity, and diagnosis--does not exist in Somalia because the infrastructure for its emergence is absent. When Somalis say that autism does not exist in Somalia, however, they mean that the disorder is Western in nature--that it is caused by environmental and health conditions unique to life in North America. Following Somali parents as they struggle to make sense of their children's illness and advocate for alternative care, Decoteau untangles the complicated ways immigration, race, and class affect the Somali relationship to the disease, and how this helps us understand our distinctly American approach to healthcare"--

Contesting Illness

Contesting Illness
Author: Katherine Anne Teghtsoonian
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0802095127


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Contesting Illness offers valuable insights into the assumptions, practices, and interactions that shape illness in the twenty-first century.

Contesting Intersex

Contesting Intersex
Author: Georgiann Davis
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2015-09-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1479814156


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"When sociologist Georgiann Davis was a teenager, her doctors discovered that she possessed XY chromosomes, marking her as intersex. Rather than share this information with her, they withheld the diagnosis in order to "protect" the development of her gender identity; it was years before Davis would see her own medical records as an adult and learn the truth. Davis' experience is not unusual. Many intersex people feel isolated from one another and violated by medical practices that support conventional notions of the male/female sex binary which have historically led to secrecy and shame about being intersex. Yet, the rise of intersex activism and visibility in the US has called into question the practice of classifying intersex as an abnormality, rather than as a mere biological variation. This shift in thinking has the potential to transform entrenched intersex medical treatment. In Contesting Intersex, Davis draws on interviews with intersex people, their parents, and medical experts to explore the oft-questioned views on intersex in medical and activist communities, as well as the evolution of thought in regards to intersex visibility and transparency. She finds that framing intersex as an abnormality is harmful and can alter the course of one's life. In fact, controversy over this framing continues, as intersex has been renamed a 'disorder of sex development' throughout medicine. This happened, she suggests, as a means for doctors to reassert their authority over the intersex body in the face of increasing intersex activism in the 1990s and feminist critiques of intersex medical treatment. Davis argues the renaming of 'intersex' as a 'disorder of sex development' is strong evidence that the intersex diagnosis is dubious. Within the intersex community, though, disorder of sex development terminology is hotly disputed; some prefer not to use a term which pathologizes their bodies, while others prefer to think of intersex in scientific terms. Although terminology is currently a source of tension within the movement, Davis hopes intersex activists and their allies can come together to improve the lives of intersex people, their families, and future generations. However, for this to happen, the intersex diagnosis, as well as sex, gender, and sexuality, needs to be understood as socially constructed phenomena." -- Publisher's description

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care

Improving Diagnosis in Health Care
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2015-12-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309377722


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Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.