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Why Do Medical Professional Regulators Dismiss Most Complaints From Members of the Public? Regulatory Illiteracy, Epistemic Injustice, and Symbolic Power
Drawing on an analysis of complaint files that we conducted for the Irish Medical Council (Madden and O’Donovan 2015 ), this paper offers three possible explanations for the gap between the ubiquity of official commitments to taking patients’ complaints seriously and medical professional regulators’...
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Published in: | Journal of bioethical inquiry 2018-09, Vol.15 (3), p.469-478 |
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Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | Drawing on an analysis of complaint files that we conducted for the Irish Medical Council (Madden and O’Donovan
2015
), this paper offers three possible explanations for the gap between the ubiquity of official commitments to taking patients’ complaints seriously and medical professional regulators’ dismissal—as not warranting an inquiry—of the vast majority of complaints submitted by members of the public. One explanation points to the “regulatory illiteracy” of many complainants, where the remit and threshold of seriousness of regulators is poorly understood by the general public. Another points to possible processes of “institutional epistemic injustice” (Fricker
2007
; Anderson
2012
) that unjustly undermine the credibility of certain complainants, such as those with low levels of formal education. A third explanation highlights the marginalization of the general public from “symbolic power” (Bourdieu
1989
) to define what matters in medical professional regulation. The paper is offered in a spirit of ideas in progress and raising questions rather than definitive insights into the regulatory process. |
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ISSN: | 1176-7529 1872-4353 1872-4353 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s11673-018-9869-2 |