Short description
Examines the doctor's shifting roles and responsibilities in a rapidly changing health care system. Exploring such issues as the structure of medical education and the corporatization of health care, the text reveals how changes are fostering new ways of understanding and responding to illness.
Long description
Examines the doctor's shifting roles and responsibilities in our rapidly changing health care system. Exploring such issues as the structure of medical education, the corporatization of health care, and the increasing constraints upon the private doctor/patient relationship, the author reveals how changes in our health care system are fostering new ways of understanding and responding to illness. The text covers issues ranging from the growing emphasis on technology as healer and the physician's new role in the team oriented health care system to the economic forces governing medicine and the limits of moral responsibility for patient care. It probes the factors transforming the roles of doctors and health care institutions as well as our own understanding of health and healing.