Turkish medical doctors: |historical experience and self-narratives

Abstract

This thesis addresses a broadly fonnulated question: Why do medical doctors in Turkey conceive themselves as the voice of authority on a broad range of social and political issues which extend beyond their professionalmedical expertise? In pursuing answers to this question, it focuses on three analytically distinct sets of factors which contribute to the self-conceptions of medical doctors in contemporary Turkey: a) the historical experiences and narratives of earlier generations of doctors who were a part of the nation-building project and who were important social and political actors in the process of transition from Empire to nationhood; b) career experiences of medical doctors in the context of ongoing changes in the social and political positions of the medical profession as well as the health sector; c) power relationships between doctors and their patients in hospital contexts Each chapter of the thesis explores one of these complex and interlinked sets of factors, using information gathered from various som"ces. These sources of infonnation include autobiographies written by earlier genera:tions of doctors; interviews wi thmedical doctors currently in mid-career, as well as observation of doctor-patient relations in hospital settings.