Skip to main content
The Milbank Quarterly logoLink to The Milbank Quarterly
. 2001 Sep;79(3):327–353. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.00211

Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall

Rosemary A Stevens 1
PMCID: PMC2751200  PMID: 11565160

Abstract

The future role of national medical organizations as a moral voice in health policymaking in the United States deserves attention from both scholarly and strategic perspectives. Arguments for strengthening the public roles of organized professionalism include its long (if neglected) history of public service. Scholarship of the past 40 years has emphasized the decline of a profession imbued with self-interest, together with associated hteories of organizational conflict. Through new concepts and language, a different version of organized medicine from that of the past might be invented for the future—one that draws on multiple medical organizations, encourages more effective cooperation with other health care groups, and builds on traditional professional agendas through adaptation and extension.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (116.0 KB).


Articles from The Milbank Quarterly are provided here courtesy of Milbank Memorial Fund

RESOURCES