The Sovereignty of Medicine in Our Lives: Medicalization

Abstract

Medical practices change dramatically because of the recent scientific and technological developments in areas such as genetics, biotechnology and digital technologies. As the boundaries of medicine have become blurred, the focus of physicians has shifted from “What we can treat?” to “What we should treat?”. In such a rapidly changing world, medicine and technology are intertwined more than ever before, and this has affected medical processes, particularly the nature of medical knowledge. The transformation of medicine to an unhesitating and powerful authority, accelerated by the development of modern medicine, is strengthened with more successful results in diagnosis and treatment. The medical authority holds the reins of power to determine who is sick, healthy, or normal, or what conditions should or should not be considered as a disease. Today, many phenomena including birth, childhood, eating and drinking habits, mental states, adolescence, sexuality, pregnancy, agedness or death have been included in the field of medicine. Hence medicine has declared its sovereignty in our lives. This condition, called medicalization, although comes to the fore in the 1960s-70s, is a concept that still maintains its importance today and needs to be addressed. Medical interventions to the human body, human mind and human behavior are increasing day by day, and the scope of medical activities is expanding. Despite the fact that medicalization and treatment of cases that should not be under the influence of medicine cause many harms at the individual and societal level, this situation has been so widely accepted without questioning.