Normality, Crisis and Recovery of narrating medical Professionalism

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of how the narratives of medical professionalism have changed historically based on doctor’s autobiographies. Three different phases of narrating professionalism have roughly been distinguished. The first is marked by the struggle to professionalise medicine itself. The second is the Phase of Normality where the legitimization of medical professionalism is self-evident in the face of societal crises such as epidemics. In the Phase of Crises the authoritative doctor is no longer the legitimate source of medical decision-making. In this situation, the will and wellbeing of the individual patient is found to be a key element in how doctors themselves legitimise their actions. Key-result is that we do not interpret the described change in narrating medical professionalism as de-professionalization, but in contrast that precisely the accentuation of the patient’s perspective is the modality to recover the crisis of medical professionalism and secure it in a new form.