Normality, Crisis and Recovery of narrating medical Professionalism
Abstract
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This paper presents an analysis of how the narratives of medical professionalism have changed historically based on doctor’s autobiographies. Three different phases of narrating professionalism have roughly been distinguished. The first is marked by the struggle to professionalise medicine itself (second half of the nineteenth - twentieth century). The second is the Phase of Normality where the legitimization of medical professionalism is self-evident in the face of societal crises such as epidemics (early twentieth century - late 1960s). In the Phase of Crises (ca. late 1960s - now) the authoritative doctor is no longer the (only) legitimate source of medical decision-making. In this situation, the will and wellbeing of the individual patient is found to be a key element in how doctors themselves legitimise their actions. We reject the de-professionalisation thesis and argue that strengthening the patient’s perspective is an appropriate tool to recover the crisis of medical professionalism.