Medical Dominance

An account of how the Australian medical profession has abrogated to itself the dominant position in health care against the claims of midwives, optometrists and chiropractors.

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This new, revised and updated edition of "Medical Dominance" provides an account of the medical profession's successful domination of a wide range of health-care services. Evan Willis delves into the past to explain the existing division of labour and health care, the rise of the medical profession to a position of economic power within the health system, and its defence of that dominant position. He also considers the related question of the policy implications of medical dominance. The defence by doctors of their position of power is highlighted by the author's research into demarcation struggles between medicine and other health occupations, in particular midwifery, optometry and chiropractic. Conventional explanations of medical dominance are challenged by the argument that the role of developments of medical knowledge, and in technology itself, have been overstated. Greater account must also be taken of the social relations and struggles which developed for control of that knowledge and technology.