Author Description

This new edition of this thorough and well-received study of the sociology of health, illness, and medicine has been expanded and completely revised. It includes up-to-date findings on how people try to stay healthy and how they respond to illnesses of varying degrees. The book features new chapters on nursing and midwifery and on complementary and alternative medicine and now includes over 100 tables and figures, as well as numerous vignettes on such topics as medical technologies, pioneers in medicine, epidemics, environmental disasters, and the history of medicine.Canada's healthcare system has largely been defined by physicians, hospital administrators, and government bureaucrats. The system has had tremendous successes but retains a bias against alternative medicines, similar to the trend in the United States. One of the central questions in modern medicine now is how to balance the sometimes contradictory goals of preserving life and preserving the quality of life. Clarke adds important new information for the debate. He uses four different sociological perspectives--structural-functional, conflict, symbolic interactionist, and feminist--to examine occupational diseases; environmental challenges; the inequities of age, gender, class, race, and ethnicity; the experience of getting sick and going to the doctor; and the extent and impact of private industries on pharmaceuticals and medicine. The book also considers the Canadian healthcare system in both historical and international contexts.