Eliot_Freidson

Eliot Freidson

Eliot Freidson

Add article description

Eliot Freidson (1923 – December 14, 2005)[1] was a sociologist and medical sociologist who worked on the theory of professions. Charles Bosk says that Freidson was a founding figure in medical sociology who played a major role in the growth and legitimization of the subject.[2] The American Sociological Society awards the Eliot Freidson Outstanding Publication Award for medical sociology every two years.[3]

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Freidson was born in Boston, received a doctorate in sociology from University of Chicago, and was a professor at New York University.[1] He served in the US army in the 1940s.[4]: 287 

Many of Freidsons original ideas on medicine were influenced by those of Everett Hughes, which Freidson took and turned into a consistent theory.[5]: 2  Freidson's 1961 paper, Patients view of Medical Practice explores how patients and physicians have different conceptions of illness and how these conceptions create conflict between patients and doctors and critiques Talcott Parsons' concept of the sick role.[5]: 4 

Freidson saw the doctor–patient relationship as a conflict or clash of perspectives. Calnan distinguishes this viewpoint from Talcott Parsons which focused more on the properties of expertise, ethics, and alturism of the profession.[6]: 288 

Freidson developed the professional dominance perspective.[7]: 34  Freidson argued that medicine had achieved autonomy from other professions, noting that within the healthcare field the division of labor with other professions is determined by medicine itself.[7]: 35  Freidson argues that this autonomy can lead to a false sense of objectivity and certainty within the medical profession.[7]: 37 

Publications

Papers

  • Patients view of Medical Practice, 1961[8]
  • Professionalism and the Organization of Middle-Class Labour in Postindustrial Society, 1973
  • Professions and the Occupational Principle, 1973

Books

  • Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge, 1970[9]
  • Doctoring Together: A Study of Professional Control, 1975[10]
  • Professionalism: The Third Logic, 2001 [11]
  • Professional Dominance: The Social Structure of Medical Care, 2006[12]

Profession of medicine won the Sorokin Award from the American Sociological Association for most outstanding contribution to scholarship.[13]Peter Conrad argues that the book was the first book to apply sociological analysis to the profession and institution of medicine itself and contains many concepts that have affected understanding of medicine including professional dominance, functional autonomy, clinical mentality, self-regulation, the social construction of illness.[14]: 144 

References

  1. [1]
    Pearce, Jeremy (2005-12-26). "Eliot Freidson, 82, Dies; Studied Structure of Professions". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  2. [2]
    Bosk, Charles L. (2006). "Review Essay: Avoiding conventional understandings: the enduring legacy of Eliot Freidson". Sociology of Health & Illness. 28 (5): 637–646. doi:10.1111/j.0141-9889.2006.511_1.x. ISSN 1467-9566. PMID 16910950.
  3. [3]
    "Awards". American Sociological Association. 2014-02-12. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
  4. [4]
    Collyer, F. (2015-02-12). The Palgrave Handbook of Social Theory in Health, Illness and Medicine. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-35562-1.
  5. [5]
    Halpern, Sydney; Anspach, Renee R. (August 1993). "The Study of Medical Institutions: Eliot Freidson's Legacy". Work and Occupations. 20 (3): 279–295. doi:10.1177/0730888493020003002. hdl:2027.42/68643. ISSN 0730-8884. S2CID 143853527.
  6. [6]
    Calnan, Michael (2015), Collyer, Fran (ed.), "Eliot Freidson: Sociological Narratives of Professionalism and Modern Medicine", The Palgrave Handbook of Social Theory in Health, Illness and Medicine, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 287–305, doi:10.1057/9781137355621_19, ISBN 978-1-349-47022-8, retrieved 2021-11-05
  7. [7]
    Wolinsky, Fredric D. (1988). "The Professional Dominance Perspective, Revisited". The Milbank Quarterly. 66: 33–47. doi:10.2307/3349913. ISSN 0887-378X. JSTOR 3349913. PMID 3075009.
  8. [8]
    Anderson, Odin W. (March 1962). "ELIOT FREIDSON. Patients' Views of Medical Practice: A Study of Subscribers to a Prepaid Medical Plan in the Bronx. Pp. 268. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1961. $3.75". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 340 (1): 166–167. doi:10.1177/000271626234000164. ISSN 0002-7162. S2CID 145485313.
  9. [9]
    Freidson, Eliot (1988-05-15). Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-26228-4.
  10. [10]
    Freidson, Eliot (1975). Doctoring Together: A Study of Professional Social Control. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-99017-4.
  11. [11]
    Freidson, Eliot (2001). Professionalism : the third logic. Cambridge, UK: Polity. ISBN 0-7456-0330-0. OCLC 47678361.
  12. [12]
    Freidson, Eliot (2007). Professional dominance : the social structure of medical care. New Brunswick, N.J.: Aldine Transaction. ISBN 978-0-202-30855-5. OCLC 21933630.
  13. [13]
    "NYU's Freidson, Pioneer in Concept of Sociology in the Professions, 82". New York University.
  14. [14]
    Conrad, Peter (2007-04-01). "Eliot Freidson's revolution in medical sociology". Health. 11 (2): 141–144. doi:10.1177/1363459307074688. ISSN 1363-4593. PMID 17344268. S2CID 5188956.


Flag of United StatesBiography icon

This biography of an American sociologist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Eliot_Freidson, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.