The Death of the Sick Role

Reframing health and illness: a collaborative autoethnography on the experience of health and illness transformations in the life course

“…Over the past few decades, sociologists have demonstrated many ways social meanings, patterns and inequalities fundamentally cause and otherwise influence health and illness (see, e.g. Burnham , Charmaz , Link and Phelan ). Rather than purely biological phenomena, health and illness represent socially constructed labels placed upon biological symptoms and experiences.…”

Six domains to develop critical medical humanities

“…Along with the change in the patient–doctor relationship, the relationship between citizens and health service authorities has also changed. Nowadays, with the shifting focus of medicine from sickness to health, and from interventions to preventive measures of diseases, the renowned sociological term ‘sick role’ has become inapplicable; the agenda surrounding health citizenship, the notion of dealing with the rights and responsibilities of patients, health care professionals and the health authorities, has also been drastically transformed . To help students understand their rights and obligations, and situate themselves in such contexts, instructors of medical humanities are encouraged to collect relevant stories, either fictional or factual, beyond conventional themes and topics, such as suffering and healing in general.…”

“…Nowadays, with the shifting focus of medicine from sickness to health, and from interventions to preventive measures of diseases, the renowned sociological term 'sick role' has become inapplicable; the agenda surrounding health citizenship, the notion of dealing with the rights and responsibilities of patients, health care professionals and the health authorities, has also been drastically transformed. 17 To help students understand their rights and obligations, and situate themselves in such contexts, instructors of medical humanities are encouraged to collect relevant stories, either fi ctional or factual, beyond conventional themes and topics, such as suffering and healing in general. These issues can even be expanded to the level of global health, given that many historical and contemporary cases have revealed how the obligations and rights of patients, health professionals, and policy makers at various levels differ in the…”

Subjectivity and illness narratives

“…Following Talcott Parsons ' (1951) introduction of the concept of the ''sick role'' in the early 1950s, the fields of social sciences, psychology and critical medical humanities have witnessed an expansion of scholarly work seeking to refine, complicate, broaden and problematise Parsons' concept and ideas on the lived experience of illness (Burnham 2012(Burnham , 2014Shilling 2002;Charmaz 1999;Kleinmann 1988;McCormack 1981). A functionalist sociologist, Parsons, has been criticised for overlooking or glossing over several facets of the illness experience, for example, aspects of the doctor-patient relationship and power differentials, patients' challenges to medical expertise and agency, the role of carers, as well as dimensions of gender, class and race (see Burnham 2012Burnham , 2014.…”

“…A functionalist sociologist, Parsons, has been criticised for overlooking or glossing over several facets of the illness experience, for example, aspects of the doctor-patient relationship and power differentials, patients' challenges to medical expertise and agency, the role of carers, as well as dimensions of gender, class and race (see Burnham 2012Burnham , 2014. To address these complex questions, scholars in the medical humanities have increasingly turned to the narrative as a potent format to study and produce meaning on illness and existence (Hurwitz et al 2004).…”