Health Care and Sociological Concepts Essays

Health Care and Sociological Concepts Essays Health Care and Sociological Concepts Essay Health Care and Sociological Concepts Essay Health Care and Sociological Concepts It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. The American Health Care Industry is a very large social institution. The health care is the care, servicers, or supplies related to a person`s health. The three major sociological orientations are functionalist, conflict, and interactions; we will discuss each perspective as it pertains to the health care industry. Functionalism considers each aspect of society is interdependent and contributes to societys functioning as a whole. On the other hand the perspective received criticism that, functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even when such change may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees active social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate naturally for any problems that may arise. While functionalism focuses on positive aspect of society, which contributes to its stability, the conflict perceptive focuses on the negative and ever-changing nature of society. Conflict theorist encourages social change and believes that rich and powerful people force social order on poor and weak. Critics of the conflict perspective point to its overly negative view of society. The theory ultimately attributes humanitarian efforts, altruism, democracy, civil rights, and other positive aspects of society. The symbolic interactions, directs sociologists to consider the symbols and details of everyday life, what these symbols mean, and how people interact with each other. The American philosopher George H. Mead (1863–1931) introduced this perspective to American sociology in the 1920s. According to the symbolic interactionisms perspective, people attach meanings to symbols, and then they act according to their subjective interpretation of these symbols. Critics of this theory say that, symbolic interactions neglects the macro level of social interpretation- the â€Å"big picture. † In other words, symbolic integrationists’ may miss the larger issues of society by focusing too closely on the â€Å"trees†, rather than the â€Å"forest†. As we can see each perspective has its strengths and weaknesses, from high function to discrimination through social class, to stability and lack of accessibility. From functionalist perspective health care industry employees a large number of medical personal, it effectively replaces the personal, trains new recruits, provides important service to its members and it`s community, preserves order through strict regulations and operating procedures, and maintains its purpose through motivation for social change and charitable characteristics. The functional perspective emphasizes the contribution the health care industry makes to our societys overall stability. Health care provides basic protections against the spread of contagious diseases, maintains awareness of healthy practices, and contributes to the wellness of the community. Functionalists assume that everybody can afford the health care, it doesn`t acknowledge that a vast majority of American population can`t afford health insurance to cover their health care needs. Conflict perspective suggests that health care system can present as greed, economic influence, and unavailability to specific groups, or prejudice privilege provided to insured patients. Health care in USA is considered the most expensive care in the word, due to the high cost of health care people who don`t have health insurance can`t afford to pay for their medical needs. Medical care has become increasingly bureaucratic; many clinics and doctors offices are overwhelmed with paperwork and regulations which can prevent them effectively helping the ailing masses. Health insurance is used to supplement the outrageous cost of medical care and is out of reach to many United States residents. New data indicates 50. 7 million Americans are without private health care insurance and the outlook is grim due to the erosion of the economy and employer-based insurance plans. Federal programs attempt to provide basic or restricted coverage to the one out of every six Americans stretching the systems already limited resources. These constraints leave the uninsured with few choices, less comprehensive care, long wait times, and increased frustration within poor communities. Conflict theorist lack to see the progress that medicine has reached, life expectancy is higher, infant mortality rates are lower, the development of vaccines for many infectious diseases, allowing many people to live longer, and healthier lives. In last century the medicine reached unbelievable high`s, if in last century people where dyeing from tuberculosis, now we have the cure and control the diabetes. Even though there is a long way to go, today health care compare to the last centuries is more advanced and can diagnose and cure many times more than before. For example the technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), although expensive and not accessible to everyone, who can benefit, have had major impact on healthcare system. The symbolic internationalists would be interested in the effects of limited health care on a micro level. Symbolic internationalists focus on how people experience the healthcare system on individual level. They focus on relationships between patients and physicians, such as how they interact, what they discuss, who leads the discussion, whether physician addresses all of the patient`s concerns, or only select ones and the outcomes for these interactions for the patient. Solution to any problem indentified would focus on this individual level. The specific communities most affected by health care coverage are the elderly, children, and people living below the poverty line. Symbolic interactionalist’s theorist would emphasize that our social behavior is influenced by the social roles we accept. By accepting that health care is difficult to obtain or the system unfairly represents wealthier patrons, the lower classes of people resort to alternate means including local clinics, alternative medicine, internet applications such as WebMD and other community resources. As the community of the uninsured grows as does the demand for centralized and government provided programs. The growing number of people requiring assistance will influence future legislation and can change public opinion on the necessity of adequate care for everyone, eventually lowering fatality rates and increasing public awareness on the importance of healthy families. Critics of the symbolic internationalism would argue this approach focuses too much attention to individual situations, rather than situations that are generalized to others. Symbolic internationalism also ignores the larger social forces at work, shaping social health issues (race, politics, poverty, etc. ). The strength and weakness of each perspective lies in its definition of the institution. The functionalist view shows us the power and influence the health care industry has on society, its ability to sustain itself and grow. The functionalist view does not specify how society does or does not benefit from the growing institution. The conflict perspective shows us the potential downfall of the industry, the alienation and lack of care for low-income or unemployed people. The perspective does not analyze the benefits organized health care provides but it can suggest areas needing reform. Internationalist`s show the impact of available health care on specific communities but it does not consider the wider implications of deficiency. As we can see no one prospective can fully explain all the social aspects of medicine. Each explains important information and different questions and solutions. Applying all these three perspectives to medicine allows as to see at the structure of medical care (functionalism), any issues of the power tension (conflict) and collective definition of the situation (interpretive). These way sociologists can understand the complexities and issues of the health care system, because each perspective compliments the other one, so looking at all three perspectives we can see the full picture. Our family can most closely identify with the conflict perspective because of the high unemployment rate in our area, the central valley of California. Although we do have medical insurance our rates have steadily increased over the last few years and our overall coverage has decreased. It is blatantly clear how difficult it would be to obtain adequate coverage if our employers were not providing it to us. We have friends who do not go the Dr. unless absolutely necessary and we support a generalized plan that would at least take care of children who can potentially spread viruses and diseases without prejudice to the surrounding population through their public access to schools.