New Politics of Medicine

New Politics of Medicine

Brian SalterPalgrave Macmillan2004ISBN 0 3380 1121

Keywords: Healthcare consumers, Patient involvement, Healthcare politics

A new politics of medicine is emerging from the changing relationship between medicine, society and the state. It is characterised by informed health consumers, an interventionist state, and a mobilised medical profession. With the media now its constant companion, medicine has been abruptly politicised by a range of pressures. Yet the continuities of its re-energised institutions remain intact and with them the sustaining realities of medical power.

Contents include:

• Medicine, society and the state;

• The politics of the doctor-patient relationship;

• The illusion of patient power;

• Doctors and managers;

• The parallel world of medicine;

• The invasion of medical territory;

• Medicine and the private sector; and

• New politics of medicine.