Although many things support the way society views doctors it is not to say that they always live up to their status. Some recent things that have been pointed out by the media are such things as Harold Shipman who was a mass murderer, when people watch the news and/or read newspapers and see headlines like these it makes them think that doctors are not worthy of their status, even though we would not like to admit it we tend to actually believe what people say when it comes to finding out that someone of great power has abused their power and killed many innocent people. Another thing people may consider when thinking about doctors are the fact that they store children’s and babies organs without the parents consent. What happened to human rights and the law abiding citizen that we are ready to put our lives in their hands? Some people may argue that since they are doing for a good cause there is no reason why they should not do it, also it is not going to bring back the dead child or baby.
Marxists believe that the ruling class use their power to hold on to that power and exploit people. They argue that doctors control the population on behalf of the ruling class by hiding the true structural causes of illnesses. Doctors do this by not telling the working class the real cause of the illness such as poor housing, poor working conditions and poverty but they keep them fit enough to work. Professionals are usually in contact with one another so if a working class patient complains about some pains in so and so places in their bodies the doctor might advise them not to take time off work therefore meaning whoever their boss may be would not miss out on an employee. Marxist view may have been true at the time of the industrial revolution but it might not apply to society at the present time.
Feminists believe that men use their power to hold on to power to exploit women, it is also known as patriarchy. They argue that women are controlled by males through medicine as women have their natural bodily activities ‘medicalised’. They believe doctors take advantage of women because they have disadvantages such as childbirth and menopause so they miss out time of work etc. Feminist also argue that male doctors are given higher positions and roles more then women. Someone might argue against this idea and say that women have more commitments and are more likely to take time of work there fore allowing men to reach higher positions.
So we can not always argue against the male doctors. If we didn’t have their commitment then we would not be where we are with medicine today.
The question that we are left with is do doctors deserve the high status that most people associate with them or not? In many ways we can argue that they do deserve their status because they are the one’s we go to when we are feeling ill and when we need to find out why there’s pain in places that you’ve never heard of. Some people may argue that they don’t deserve it because not all of them can be trusted, but no one is perfect.
Even though the argument against the medical profession has some valid points the argument seems to be stronger for the medical profession. I believe that doctors are here on a mission to make sure that they do their job properly and that is by curing the diseases that normal people can not even pronounce. On the other hand I am not saying that there is no room for improvement there is always room for improvement. To say doctors do not find out the real cause of the problem is not right because they are paid to fix the problem! In conclusion I would like to ask where would be without the medical profession? Who would we go to when there’s a problem need fixing in our bodies? These are key factors we need to think about before we criticise the medical profession.
