[The status of the medical profession: reinforced or challenged by the new public management?]

Abstract

This article aims to assess if the status of the medical profession has been reinforced or weakened with the new public management. With this purpose, it collects the opinion of two international experts regarding situation in the United Kingdom, in order to apply some lessons to the Spanish case. Both agree that, far from losing status and power with the healthcare reform, the medical profession has protected its status and autonomy against other social agents such as managers, politicians and patients. However, the maintenance of the status quo has been at the expense of an intra-professional stratification that has caused status inequalities linked to social class within the medical profession.

Keywords: Clase social; Doctors; Estatus ocupacional; Health care reform; Médicos; Occupational status; Poder profesional; Professional power; Reforma sanitaria; Social class.