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Expert medical decisions in occupational medicine: a sociological analysis of medical judgment
Author(s) -
Dodier Nicolas
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.ep11347547
Subject(s) - attribution , psychic , meaning (existential) , frame (networking) , ethnography , field (mathematics) , work (physics) , psychology , occupational medicine , sociology , social psychology , epistemology , alternative medicine , medicine , occupational safety and health , psychotherapist , law , computer science , political science , anthropology , engineering , telecommunications , mathematics , pathology , pure mathematics , mechanical engineering , philosophy
An ethnographic study of expert medical decisions in the field of occupational medicine explores the doctor's role in the attribution of rights to sick people. Two ‘frames’ are displayed: the ‘clinical frame’ and the ‘solicitude frame’. It is demonstrated how these correspond to the status of conditions in medical work doctrines. Then, it is shown how the ‘psychosomatic frame’ displaces the treatment of physical complaints, and how the clinical and solicitude frame exert their presence again in the psychic domain. The meaning of these results for expert medical judgments is discussed, considering comparable work in other areas of medicine.