Medical Power and Hierarchy in Australia

Running Head: POWER AND HIERARCHY 1
Medical Power and Hierarchy in Australia
Student’s Name
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POWER AND HIERARCHY 2
Health is a multidimensional theory that addresses mental, social and physical wellbeing.
What a health care system does is not only promoting health but also maintaining or restoring
it (WHO, 2009). According to Callahan (2010), the success of a healthcare system is determined
by how the system serves the ailing patients. The reason for authority and power were given to
one professional group is to ensure that the quality of services (care) offered to consumers is not
compromised. Professional hierarchy in medicine comes up when healthcare practitioners realm
work to established how medicine is to be practiced. Theorists in the past have come up with
sociological perspectives and theories that explain the dominance of the medical field. There has
been a debate over the right relationship between professionals in healthcare. The concept of
medical dominance is deeply rooted in the Australian healthcare system. From the clinical
position, doctors take in health in treatment as well as diagnosis, they are able to establish
dominance through political, clinical and economic autonomy (Willis, 1989). This essay will
explore the dominance of the medical field in Australia over nursing and allied health
professions using ideas of social theories. This paper is outlined to first explain about the role
played by sociology and perspectives in healthcare. That will be followed by a discussion of the
biomedical model and the Australian healthcare system in brief before discussing in details the
concepts of power and hierarchy.
Adorno (2018) defines sociology as learning about people in their respective societies
and exploring their social interactions, relationships and culture from micro to macro- level
groups. Health sociology targets to understand the important issues in humans like pain
suffering, and health and even proceeding to examine the impact of the health conditions
Sociology in health examines the occurrence of illnesses and the interventions possible in
specific locational and societal settings. Sociology in health according to Pescosolido, Martin,

POWER AND HIERARCHY 3
McLeo and Rogers (2010), comprises of health and illness, medicalization, cerebral health,
infirmity, and social epidemiology. From a sociological point of view, health and illness have
their roots as social organization, traditions beliefs, culture, and ethnic traditions, in the way they
come about and how they are spread. This, therefore, means that health problems are social
problems. As an example, poor people in the society are likely victims of illness and health
issues as compared to people of a higher social class. Unlike medical insights, sociological
perspectives regard external influences of demographics of those contacting illnesses and
diseases. The patterns of illness and health across societies or within societies is not constant. For
example, mortality is low in developed and industrialized societies and that leads to higher life
expectancy in developed societies over the undeveloped or the developing ones. Heath and
illness are also attributed to inequalities existing in societies. The unequal share of social,
political and economic resources and power link the quality of care patients receive. As a
summation of all these, as biological and natural factors are in determining health or lack of it,
sociological insights also play a role.
There are various approaches to sociological exploration. Sociology provides answers
like the definitions of health relative to peoples’ view, sex, and addictions without limitations to
others. Other issues that are guided by sociological perspectives is the viewing of condition or
infirmities, previously thought to be normal but are now taken for disease and vice versa. The
impact of perspectives is felt by the understanding of issues of this weight. The interactionist
perspective addresses the understanding of personal health and how these health statuses affect
others. An example is having an Ebola patient within a society. The interaction of the patient
with other people in the same society including health providers puts their health statuses at risk
of contracting the fatal and highly communicable disease. A functionalist perspective, for