Trusting doctors : the decline of moral authority in American medicine / Jonathan B. Imber.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Discusses the emphasis that Protestant clergymen placed on the physician's vocation; the focus that Catholic moralists put on specific dilemmas faced in daily medical practice; and the loss of unchallenged authority experienced by doctors after World War II, when practitioners became valued for their technical competence rather than their personal integrity. Imber shows how the clergy gradually lost their impact in defining the physician's moral character, and how vocal critics of medicine contributed to a decline in patient confidence. The author argues that as modern medicine becomes defined by specialization, rapid medical advance, profit-driven industry, and ever more anxious patients, the future for a renewed trust in doctors will be confronted by even greater challenges.

Print version record.

Cover; CONTENTS; PREFACE: A Sociological Perspective; INTRODUCTION; PART ONE: Religious Foundations of Trust in Medicine; 1 Protestantism, Piety, and Professionalism; 2 The Influence of Catholic Perspectives; 3 The Scientific Challenge to Faith; 4 Public Health, Public Trust, and the Professionalization of Medicine; PART TWO: Beyond the Golden Age of Trust in Medicine; 5 The Growth of Popular Distrust in Medicine; 6 The Evolution of Bioethics; 7 Anxiety in the Age of Epidemiology; 8 Trust and Mortality; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; APPENDIX 1: Extant Addresses, Sermons, and Eulogies by Clergymen.

eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - Worldwide