Deference to the importance of the patient's view has recently become a major feature of much medical practice and social science research. This paper, however, argues that attempts to establish the authentic version of what the patient says is misplaced as investigation can only reveal what is...

From the novel geography of the health centre to the meticulous concerns of appointment systems and patient records, British general practice, as this paper documents, has reordered its traditional activities over the last 30 years. These changes however suggest a more profound reorganisation of...

The Woodrising farming business has developed from a grazing operation based on a relatively small soldier settlement block in Northern Tasmania. The expansion and diversification has entailed: Purchase of additional land. Leasing land for cropping, for short (seasonal) and long (3-5 year)...

This paper argues that until about 10 years ago the caring role of the nurse was restricted primarily to the biological functioning of the patient. The more recent concern with communication and patient 'psychology' in the nursing literature suggests that nursing has succeeded, through this...

Evidence-based medicine enables the profession to resist at least some of the challenges to its traditional autonomy: if informed doctors provide what is scientifically proven to be the best care there is less justification for external constraints. Yet, this defensive strategy depends on...

 The role of diagnostic labels in medicine is usually that of labelling an illness as a means of communication. Control over labelling processes in medicine is ordinarily imposed via medical schools, textbooks, education or by diagnostic manuals. Diagnostic labels often change following new...

To date, the tools used to assessthe status of untouchability have been divided by discipline—human rights, legal and social science. Although significant contributions toward understanding untouchability have been made in each of these areas, it is difficult to comprehend the scope and...

Using two longitudinal and nationally representative datasets, this study employs a cross-cohort analysis to examine age, cohort and period effects in the prevalence of sleep loss through worry for people over the age of 50 in the UK. The likelihood of reporting sleep loss through worry is...

This paper briefly describes how the genealogical method, as derived from Foucault's work, might be used to explore the problem of chronic illness. The genealogical method is differentiated from other qualitative methods, from epidemiology, and from the history of ideas. Finally, the particular...

Model selection strategies play an important, if not explicit, role in quantitative research. The inferential properties of these strategies are largely unknown, therefore, there is little basis for recommending (or avoiding) any particular set of strategies. In this paper, we evaluate several...