Medicine And The Family: A Feminist Perspective

For centuries, habitual medicine has been infused with a masculine bias, often to the disadvantage of both doctors and patients. In this compelling book, Lucy M. Candib challenges prevailing views and offers a family-oriented feminist approach to the do of medicine. Drawing on her twenty years of experience as a family doctor, the author systematically dissects the assumptions underlying current teachings about child and adult development, sexual abuse, the family life cycle, and family systems. She exposes the ways in which women are often ignored, subordinated, or blamed in the modern medical system. For example, she notes that women are often held only responsible for all problems in their families, including child abuse and battering.Candib then reexamines the doctor-patient relationship from a feminist perspective, showing how ”doctors-in-relation” allow caring to take focal top stage in clinical work, in contrast to the habitual medical emphasis on prudence and detachment. By putting caring at the forefront, both caregivers and patients can start to reckon about power in a new way, and to see the clinical relationship as healing and empowering, rather than unequal and combative.Powerfully argued and generously illustrated with case examples, this book is certain to exchange the terms of debate about such critical issues as medical education, family violence, and care of the poor and elderly. With its superb integration of feminist theory and modern medical plotting, this book is ideal for physicians, nurses, social workers, and all mental health professionals who work with families.