The Informal Organization of the Medical Profession

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Abstract
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.

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