Challenging Medicine: the case of podiatric surgery
研究英国国民健康服务体系（NHS）中足病外科的建立如何挑战医学对足部手术服务的控制，分析非医学背景的足病医生开展手术并融入主流服务是否表明医学权威在界定辅助医疗实践范围方面的减弱。
This paper examines the establishment of National Health Service (NHS) podiatric surgery as a challenge to the dominance of medicine and its control over the provision of foot surgical services. The practice of surgery by non-medically qualified podiatrists and its integration within mainstream NHS service provision is evaluated as possible evidence of the diminishing authority of medicine in determining the scope and boundaries of paramedical practice and in successfully resisting encroachment from other ‘health professions’. The centrality of medical power in the organisation of healthcare has characterised much of the existing sociological literature on the health professions, most evident within the professional dominance perspective (Freidson 1970a, 1970b). This approach, and its variants, particularly highlight the autonomous control of medicine over its knowledge base, clients and clinical activities, in addition to its hegemonic position in relation a range of subordinate healthcare occupations (Freidson 1970a, 1970b; Johnson 1972; Larkin 1983, 1988, 1993, 1995; Wolinsky 1993).