+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Posted Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:25:55
This message was forwarded through MEDSOCNEWS.
If you wish to make an announcement or publicise
an event then please send the text to:
[log in to unmask]
You can follow us on twitter @MedSocNews
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We are delighted to announce the first London Medical Sociology Group meeting for 2015:
Wednesday 28th January - 6-7pm 'Debating a revisionist account of chronic illness'
Professor David Armstrong, King's College London
Professor Paul Higgs and Dr Chris Gilleard, University College London
In opening the meeting, Professor David Armstrong will challenge the generally accepted thesis that the emergence and dominance of chronic illness over the last half century is due to the receding tide of acute infectious diseases and an ageing population. Instead, through an analysis of contemporary reports in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is argued that the construct of chronic illness emerged as part of a new focus on the downstream consequences of disease and as a means of transferring what had been seen as the natural processes of ageing and senescence into an explanatory model based on pathological processes. The widely accepted idea of an epidemiological transition in illness prevalence has served to conceal the ways in which medicine has extended its remit and suppressed alternative explanatory frameworks.
This will be followed with a response from Professor Paul Higgs and Dr Chris Gilleard, who will argue (i) that David Armstrong misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiological transition, namely the decline in infant, child and maternal mortality; (ii) that he fails to acknowledge debates going back centuries in Western medicine over the distinctions between natural and accidental death and between endogenous and extrinsic causes of ageing and (iii) that he misrepresents the growth of medical interest in the everyday illnesses of old age over the course of the 20th century as a discourse of suppression rather than a process of inclusion. While we would acknowledge that the chronic illnesses of today are different from those of the past, this amounts to something more than the changing semantics of senility.
We will then open up the session for a general discussion and follow this with a trip to a nearby pub.
Everyone is welcome to attend, so please join us for what should be a lively and thought-provoking debate.
*Venue*
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Room G09, 15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
Nearest train/tube stations: Russell Square, Euston and King's Cross
Contact:
Oliver Bonnington [log in to unmask]
Lorelei Jones [log in to unmask]
**********************************************************************
1. For general enquires or problems with the list or to CHANGE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS send a message to:
[log in to unmask]
2. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example,
send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message:
set medsocnews nomail
3. To resume email from the list, send the following message:
set medsocnews mail
4. To leave MedSocNews, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message (leave the subject line blank and do not include a signature):
leave medsocnews
5. To join or subscribe to MedSocNews, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message (leave the subject line blank and do not include a signature):
SUBSCRIBE medsocnews firstname lastname
6. Further information about the medsocnews discussion list (including
list archive and how to subscribe to or leave the list) can be found
at the list web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medsocnews.html
**********************************************************************
|