ABSTRACT
Medicine has its own politics, and they can be understood as one of the ways the profession deals with questions of value. Manifestations of these politics include criticism of the profession and “ideologies of care” that seek to influence practice. This chapter focuses on two lines of criticism that have been levelled at the profession since the 1960s: the critique of medicalization and the critique of reductionism. I argue that these critiques operationalize different notions of power and that one tends to propel medicine into new jurisdictions, whereas the other tends to hold it back. Following Zola, I characterize the directions or “vectors” of medicine’s ongoing expansion into new jurisdictions. The concept of disease is widely understood to play an important role in this process. I argue that its importance is possibly diminishing, and therefore overplayed, and I highlight the expansionary influence of humanistic values that inform what I call “ideologies of care.” I conclude by reflecting on the productive effects of political criticism of medicine and the effects of “ideologies of care” on the experience of healthcare professionals.
