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The Informal Organization of the Medical Profession*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Oswald Hall
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Extract

Social scientists have given very little time to the study of professions. They have studied the market and the state, the family and the labour union, the immigrant and the delinquent; but the professions, of which they are a part, they have in general avoided. The omission is not easy to explain. Undeniably professions play an extremely important part in our own type of society. As a matter of fact, professions should be interesting merely for the fact that in no other type of society have they developed in comparable fashion. In terms of the functions performed, the prestige accorded, the numbers involved, and the portion of the national income which they receive in our society, they are obviously important.

The study of professions requires a manifold approach, one which corresponds to the various facets of the type studied. In order to understand a profession one would need to know something about the following: (1) the institutions within which the members carry on their activities, (2) the characteristics of the clienteles which the members acquire, and (3) the groups into which the members of the profession are organized.

The successful practice of medicine requires access to a multiplicity of institutions. Of particular importance are the hospital, the clinic, and the established office practice. The successful career in medicine involves gaining admittance to these institutions, and maintaining connexion with them. Only the exceptional practitioner can survive without access to such institutions; the freelance practitioner has gradually been supplanted by one whose career depends on his relationships with a network of institutions.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1946 , pp. 30 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1946

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Footnotes

*

This paper was read at the Round Table on Sociology at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in May, 1945.

References

1 For an historical approach to the medical profession see Saunders, A. N. Carr, Professions, Their Organization and Place in Society (Oxford, 1928).Google Scholar

2 For a discussion of the role of professions in contemporary society see Parsons, T., “The Professions and Social Structure” (Social Forces, vol. XVII, 1939, pp. 457–67).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For a penetrating analysis of the range of characteristics deserving attention see Hughes, E. C., “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status” (American Journal of Sociology, vol. L, 1945, pp. 353–9).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For a careful analysis of the inner workings of a formal group see Garceau, O., The Political Life of the American Medical Association (Cambridge, Mass., 1941)Google Scholar

5 A critical and suggestive treatment of the problem of gaining access to information in such fields is found in Hughes, E. C., “The Study of Institutions” (Social Forces, vol. XX, 1940, pp. 307–10).Google Scholar