Talcott Parsons Sick Role Model

This essay looks at the sick role and different definitions of health and illness, doctor -patient relationships and how health care systems affect the societies. In the first paragraph, the brief explanation of, how the concept of health differs with time, place and with some factors including age, gender, social class and culture. Then explain different definitions of health, including negative and positive (WHO) health definitions and the three Mildred Blaxter health definitions such as negative, positive and functional definition of health. At the end of this paragraph discuss about the biomedical and social model of health and evaluate them. The second paragraph analysed the sick role- the patient two rights and two responsibilities-
Parsons defined health as an ability to perform the social role. As a functionalist, he saw society as a set of interconnected parts and depend each other and individuals are productive members of the society. However, illness disturbs the functioning of the society in which they live: the sick are not producing as they deviate from normal social role and may require resources. Parsons believed that for deviance to be sanctioned medical experts must certify that a person is actually ill, a process that legitimated illness otherwise, the person considers as a malingerer. Once the ill person is in sanction deviance, she has to perform the sick role in order to return her/his social role. Parsons described two rights and two responsibilities an ill person has associated with sick role. To be exempt from the normal social obligation, for example, to go to school, work or any family responsibilities and the sick must be cared for by his family. However, a patient has the responsibility to make getting well a priority and responsibility to seek appropriate treatment and co-operating with medical experts. The Parsons’ sick role is influential in medical sociology and it was a good idea for many researches. There have been a number of criticisms of the sick role. First, his theory of recovery for all does not apply
Marxist argues that health professional are agent of capitalism who gives priority for profit rather than health. Doctors treat labours to avoid the disturbance of capitalists’ productivity due to illness and to increase the work productivity. Poorer people’s health exchange for the capital growth of the riches, commodity work influence of the workforces’ health in different ways, for example, dangerous chemicals from industry , lack of sleep due to overtime and shift work, deskilling ,to name a few. Working class people live nearby polluted industries and use cheap processed foods which have high risks for health, but doctors skewed the cause of illness of the patients rather than telling them the