Social Organization Of Medical Work

Today we face the painful reality of the prevalence of chronic, rather than acute, diseases. The technologies developed to manager long-term, incurable illnesses have radically and irrevocably altered the organizational structure of health care, presenting us with a frequently bewildering array of medical specialties. Social Organization of Medical Work offers essential insight into this new era of health care. Through richly documented, often gripping case studies, Anselm Strauss and his co-authors show us exactly how health workers are confronting the problems created by chronic disease and coping with today's highly technologized hospitals. They guide us through the various hospital work sites, describing in detail the kinds of tasks performed by medical personnel, the interactions of staff members with each other and with patients, and the overall resulting patient treatment and response. Focusing on the concept of illness trajectory, the authors vividly illustrate the complex, contingent nature of modern medical work. For example, open heart surgery keeps ill persons alive and may even improve them symptomatically, but those who do survive must face an uncertain future in terms of the physiological consequences of the surgery and the drugs required. They also have to adjust t altered lifestyles. In the new introduction, Anselm Strauss discusses the continuing importance of this work to sociologists, medical scholars, and medical professionals.

Today we face the painful reality of the prevalence of chronic, rather than acute, diseases. The technologies developed to manager long-term, incurable illnesses have radically and irrevocably altered the organizational structure of health care, presenting us with a frequently bewildering array of medical specialties. Social Organization of Medical Work offers essential insight into this new era of health care.Through richly documented, often gripping case studies, Anselm Strauss and his co-authors show us exactly how health workers are confronting the problems created by chronic disease and coping with today's highly technologized hospitals. They guide us through the various hospital work sites, describing in detail the kinds of tasks performed by medical personnel, the interactions of staff members with each other and with patients, and the overall resulting patient treatment and response.Focusing on the concept of illness trajectory, the authors vividly illustrate the complex, contingent nature of modern medical work. For example, open heart surgery keeps ill persons alive and may even improve them symptomatically, but those who do survive must face an uncertain future in terms of the physiological consequences of the surgery and the drugs required. They also have to adjust t altered lifestyles. In the new introduction, Anselm Strauss discusses the continuing importance of this work to sociologists, medical scholars, and medical professionals.

The Social Organization of Sports Medicine is the first book-length overview of the social scientific study of sports medicine, drawing together work from an international cadre of scholars who examine and provide interdisciplinary analysis of the dynamic and multi-faceted relationships between sports and medicine and within sports medicine. The book charts changing perceptions of sport within medical discourse, attempts by sports medicine providers to forge professional identities in response to these processes, the day-to-day experiences of deliverers of sports medicine and the reactions of recipients of that healthcare. The contents are organized in four sections, examining the competing and changing ways in which sports medicine is conceived, the ways in which it is organized, the ways in which it is practiced, and points of contestation between traditional and alternative and emerging forms of (sports) medicine. This collection of essays consolidates recent advances in this area of study and establishes a basis for the future development of the field.

The essays gathered in this volume contain analyses based on the general action perspective of Chicago sociology and, in particular, on the contributions of Anselm L. Strauss, whose lengthy achievement this volume honors.

This book presents a sociomaterial perspective on work and organizational practices within the operating room. Looking at medical work from a sociological perspective and drawing on ethnographic observations conducted in a hospital's operating block, this book analyses the entanglements of humans and technologies in the execution of everyday activities. It highlights how the sociomateriality of work and organizational practices manifests in the encounters between operators and material artifacts and in the way objects and technologies participate in processes and practices of organizational communication. Objects and technologies are also shaped by these very practices, giving rise to a recursive relationship wherein technology, communication, and organizing are intertwined. A sociomaterial understanding of organizational and working practices explains the role of objects and technologies in the generation and enactment of professional knowledge, while questioning how power materializes through the interaction of humans and technical objects. This book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and practitioners interested in how sociomaterial perspectives can inform organization studies and reshape our understanding of the intricate relationships between humans and technologies in healthcare settings.

There is widespread recognition that the most powerful determinants of health today are to be found in social, economic and cultural circumstances. These include: ecnomic growth, income distribution, consumption, work oganisation, unemployment and job insecurity, social and family structure, education and deprivation, and they are all aspects of 'social organisation'. In ^Health and Social Organisation leading British and North American researchers who bring together an invaluable collection of data on these issues, draw from the social sciences, epidemiology and biology.

Qualitative Research Through Case Studies provides an accessible introduction to a wide range of approaches that deal with the theoretical analysis of qualitative data.