Flexibility, job insecurity and health bureaucracy: three determinants of medical deprofessionalization

Abstract

 In the conformation of the industrial society, the professions emerged as a fundamental movement of the division of labor, of occupational and class stratification. Its maintenance and importance over time has been sustained through professionalization processes for the production of specialized knowledge that distinguishes it from other occupations and at the same time gives it autonomy and social recognition to give legitimacy and permanence in function of society. The medical profession has served as an ideological apparatus on the part of the State to control and dominate society based on health needs through professionals who exercise reduced power relations to secondary agents, perpetuating class differences. The professions in general have suffered the ravages of neoliberal policies and the medical profession is no exception. The reality of health services circulates among neglected hospitals, lack of budget, poor care, lack of material, human resources and medicines, bureaucratic procedures, and other structural shortcomings that subsume the indicators and administrative procedures to the professional's practice.