Annemarie Jutel

"Diagnosis, the classification tool of medicine, serves an important social role. It confers social status on those who diagnose, and it impacts the social status of those diagnosed. Studying diagnosis from a sociological perspective offers clinicians and students a rich and sometimes provocative view of medicine and the cultures in which it is practiced. Social Issues in Diagnosis describes how diagnostic labels and the process of diagnosis are anchored in groups and structures as much as they are in the interactions between patient and doctor."--Back Cover.

Over a decade after medical sociologist Phil Brown called for a sociology of diagnosis, this book provides the first book-length, comprehensive framework for this emerging subdiscipline of medical sociology. Diagnosis is central to medicine. It creates social order, explains illness, identifies treatments, and predicts outcomes. Using concepts of medical sociology, Annemarie Goldstein Jutel sheds light on current knowledge about the components of diagnosis to outline how a sociology of diagnosis would function. She situates it within the broader discipline, lays out the directions it should explore, and discusses how the classification of illness and framing of diagnosis relate to social status and order. Jutel explains why this matters not just to doctor-patient relationships but also to the entire medical system. As a result, she argues, the sociological realm of diagnosis encompasses not only the ongoing controversy surrounding revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in psychiatry but also hot-button issues such as genetic screening and pharmaceutical industry disease mongering. Both a challenge and a call to arms, Putting a Name to It is a lucid, persuasive argument for formalizing, professionalizing, and advancing longstanding practice. Jutel's innovative, open approach and engaging arguments will find support among medical sociologists and practitioners and across much of the medical system.

Someone else might crave excitement, but Dr. Natalya Pulaski was enjoying her ordinary life. Then she received a chilling call from her best friend--and the line mysteriously went dead. She felt in her bones something bad had happened. And that she had to get answers. Detective Michael DiPalma's Friday night plans did not include working a missing person's case--or uncovering a dead body. But something about Natalya's vivid green eyes and killer curves demanded his immediate attention. As they teamed up, it was clear the walls around their guarded hearts were about to crumble. Were they brave enough to take the fall?