Medycyna w polu badań socjologii choroby, zdrowia i medycyny w kontekście niemedykocentrycznej orientacji badawczej subdyscypliny
Medicine in the research field of the sociology of illness, health and medicine in the context of the subdiscipline’s non-medicocentric orientation

Summary/Abstract: The paper seeks to discuss the origin and cognitive identity of the non-medicocentric research orientation in medical sociology as well as the consequences of the emergence of this trend for medical sociology’s field of research and terminology. The subject of analysis is the development of this research orientation in a historical perspective taking into account the role of inter alia Ch. McIntire’s, R. Straus’s and D. Mechanic’s concept of sociomedical research, and the contribution of scholars who refer to humanist sociology in the area of American (F. Davis, E. Freidson, E. Goffman, A. Strauss) and British medical sociology (M. Bury). The subject of analysis are detailed research trends that constitute the non medicocentric research orientation in medical sociology taking into account the sociology of illness experience and sociology of health. The author advances a proposition that a strong orientation in medical sociology towards lay interpretations and measures undertaken in health and in illness should not lead to the exclusion of institutional medicine outside its research interests, in particular in the context of new research challenges connected with the development of ‘sociology of medical diagnosis’, ‘sociology of uncertain illness’, ‘sociology of pharmaceuticals’, etc., which would make it possible to build a balanced scenario for the development of socio-medical research.

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