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The Buffalo System: an example of remediation as a method of social control
Author(s) -
Kovit Leonard
Publication year - 1981
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/j.1467-9566.1981.tb00229.x
Subject(s) - socialization , ethnography , duty , process (computing) , control (management) , hierarchy , psychology , social control , social psychology , social system , developmental psychology , sociology , computer science , law , political science , social science , artificial intelligence , anthropology , operating system
This paper has two foci: an ethnographic description of the‘Buffalo System’and a discussion of socializing practices that are aimed at preventing unrepairable and stigmatizing failure. The‘Buffalo System’is a method of socialization and social control which was used in the process of training residents in the obstetric and gynaecological department of a university teaching hospital. An ethnographic account of the system is presented. The main features of the system that are described include the method of reporting‘outstanding surgical activity above, below and lateral to the call of duty’(Buffalo Chips), the nature of monetary fines for these‘feats of negativity’(Buffalo Bills), and the hierarchy which controls the symbolic and behavioural components of the system (Buffalo Chiefs). The role and mechanisms of peer review and the impact of failure and humour are also discussed. The paper attempts to show how a socialization system can operate which does not confer the stigmatizing label of‘failure’on the seemingly failed, but rather transforms them into 'successful’before their failure becomes unrepairable and stigmatizing. The Buffalo System is unique in that it capitalizes on failure and encourages the discovery of failure as a technique for training residents to deal with the possibility of their own and others’failure at medical tasks.