“Modern medicine is a negation of health. It isn’t organized to serve human health, but only
itself, as an institution. It makes more people sick than it heals.”
-Ivan Illich
From avoiding hospitals for conditions like childbirth to running to hospitals at the mere sight of an acne, our society has come a long way. The more diseases we hear of, the more diseases we invent in our heads. The term medicalisation means the process of labelling some aspect of human life as a medical condition. Yesterday having too many moles was just another genetic predisposition, but today it is certainly cancer or something as severe as it. Is it right to think that way? Is it good for people to run to doctors at the slightest sign of discomfort? And the answer to these questions is more negative than positive. Sometimes its good to be precautious but more often than not its just a false alarm.
There was a time when even doctors realized that medicine had started controlling social matters and that now everyday aspects were seen as medical concerns. Peter Conrad, one of the pioneers in creating awareness about the over-medicalization of society, came across it while working on research. He was working at Boston University in 1976 on the identification of hyperactive children. As this project moved forward, the focus shifted from the topic to the medicalization of deviance. He then contributed many papers and books to the topic, increasing our understanding and also creating meaningful awareness.
With more circulation of health related information in the community, we have started associating ourselves with more problems. Peter Conrad in his book ‘The Medicalisation of Society’ has defined medicalisation as a process rather than a state of mind, and this process can be divided into stages. In order to medicalise something first it needs to be a deviant behavioral in the eyes of the society, once we find the deviant behaviour it is studied in detail by the researchers and explained further in journals. The next step is the most important one because it is here that various medical and non medical organizations come together and prove the existence of a new medical deviance category. Finally the claim is legitimized and classified, so that doctors can start finding a treatment. But at the end of the day its not actually medical professionals or scientific geniuses who are bringing this medicalisation, it is actually the popular belief that is leading to the change. The three major drivers of the process of medicalisation according to Conrad’s research in the USA were the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, the consumers and finally the managed care organizations (health care company or a health plan that is focused on managed care as a model to limit costs, while keeping quality).
The level at which medicalization of a problem occurs also plays a very important role in defining the problem’s significance in society. As defined in the book, it can be at three levels.
Conceptual, at this level, only a medical term is given to define the problem; society is least involved, so the impact is less. Institutional: at this level, organizations start providing solutions or treatments for the problem, and a specialized approach is introduced by many. At this stage, the problem starts taking the shape of a disease in the eyes of society. Interactional is the last stage, and it is here that people start accepting it as a disease and going to the doctor for treatment. This indicates that society has accepted the new disease and is willing to get treated for it. This is when we say that deviance is medicalized in the eyes of society. For example, caffeine withdrawal is a problem still at the conceptual level, while premenstrual syndrome has reached the institutional level of medicalization. Menopause is a problem that has reached an interactional level of medicalization.
The medicalisation process has had a good impact on society by increasing the health status in
general. The process has also brought a hopefulness and positivity to the society as when a
condition is controlled by chance events or luck, we lose control over it. But if a condition is medically related, it opens the way for medical research, study and developments, which ultimately improves the condition. Another benefit of this medicalisation has been the de-stigmatisation of various conditions in the society, for example, a hysterical woman is no longer a witch in the eyes of the society. 
But over medicalisation has become a problem in itself. Undoubtedly, the whole process has been playing a very important role in shaping our society. As per the research by various social scientists, medicalisation of various life experiences and social conditions have led to unrequired prescriptions and evaluations. As a result conditions that can be cured by counselling, are more often bearing the burden of drug reactions. In today’s society when the patient population is more or less educated and highly aware of the medical scenario another trend of medicalising conditions for the sake of placebo is seen. For instance, there are a lot of people who visit doctors for complaints like fatigue, some over-observed physiological condition or any common social condition. These people are not patients but they have accepted themselves as patients looking for treatment. More often the treatment to this is explaining thewhole condition, counselling them about how normal their experience is and then sending them
home. But that is not a satisfactory consultation for these people so doctors decide to prescribe them multivitamins or something that can have a placebo effect. Because if not then these people go on consulting doctors till they find a doctor who considers their problems as problems. This aspect of medicalisation is not introduced by doctors or researchers but it is introduced for the sake of society’s satisfaction and has a negative impact on medical practice.
The psychological conditions are the most over medicalised dimension of medicine. Various conditions that were not a disorder a century ago, are part of some or the other psychological spectrum. And while the change has been helpful, some changes have been purely strategic and unrequired. It has been estimated that in the future, each person will have suffered from some or the other psychological condition in their lifetime.
Another alarming consequence of over medicalisation is the transfer of responsibility from people to the condition. Before the medicalisation of chronic alcoholism, the person was responsible for his drinking habits and the repercussions it has but now the blame lies on the condition. It is the disease that makes them behave in a certain way and not the other way round, taking away the responsibility from people. The medicalisation of conditions have also introduced fear and increased concerns among the people. It has also clouded the doctor’s judgement of the condition as many times when patients have consulted doctors with a preconceived notion, the doctors have been subconsciously or consciously inclined towards looking at the condition in that light only.
A new development in medicalization is the mHealth arena; ‘m’ here stands for mobile and points towards the digital advancement in the form of apps and software. These apps have made sharing and accessing information easier for people in general and the medical community. There is a lot of information open to interpretation by the common public, which has created equal amounts of awareness and logicless notions. This can reshape the definition and pace of medicalization and pose sociological threats beyond medicalization.
Finally, we can agree that society is too medicalised. While this medicalisation has brought a lot of improvement in health status and optimistic attitude, it has also introduced a few serious problems. To keep a check on it, the process needs to be limited in a way that prevents unnecessary medicalisation without hindering the required work. The scope for de-medicalisation should be expanded and proper awareness should be created regarding it. Only this will ensure that medicalisation remains a scientifically and sociologically vital aspect of humanity.
REFERENCES
1. The Medicalisation of Society by Peter Conrad
2.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304803031_Peter_Conrad_The_Medicalisation_of_Society
3. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9566.ep10934730
