“ medicalization ” of every day life

1. “medicalization” of every day life As medical profession gained increasing status… due to rising therapeutic potential of medical science & licensing improvements in period of rapid social & economic change: immigration, industrialization, urbanization …doctors were increasingly considered authorities on a range of social questions: nutrition, child rearing, sexuality, deviance

2. Late 19th c. medical licensing post-Civil War, all states established licensing reqs. standard to be set by medical associations (physicians) for social protection from malpractice part of trend toward restrictive professionalism, in U.S. medical schools had to meet state licensing guidelines re instruction many states also est’d. licensing exams for physicians still, homeopaths, osteopaths et al. sat on many licensing boards, or were granted own licensing boards

3. Johns Hopkins hospital & medical school, est. 1890s

4. 20th c. reforms by medical profession 1901 AMA began increasing its membership from local medical societies to have greater national influence esp. over licensing boards for med schools & hospitals 1910 Flexner report funded by Carnegie Fndn. to standardize medical education in U.S. AMA helped with surveys for Flexner rpt • led to closing of inferior medical schools • therefore reduction in supply of doctors

5. Flexner Report summary, 1910 To improve & standardize medical education “Progress for the future would seem to require a very much smaller number of medical schools, better equipped & better conducted than our schools now as a rule are; and the needs of the public would equally require that we have fewer physicians graduated each year, but that these should be better educated & better trained.”

6. Flexner rpt. to Carnegie Foundation teaching hospitals are essential to any good med school as are labs & able students students should know basic science, from 2-yrs college dogmatic sectarians should not be tolerated only logical, scientific medicine no need for separate women’s medical schools little demand; best to invest in good co-ed schools must train “negro” drs. as caregivers for black population for their protection and for broader public health