American Medicine: The Quest for Competence

What does it mean to be a good doctor in America today? How do such challenges as new biotechnologies, the threat of malpractice suits, and proposed health-care reform affect physicians' ability to provide quality care?

These and many other crucial questions are examined in this book, the first to fully explore the meaning and politics of competence in modern American medicine. Based on Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good's recent ethnographic studies of three distinct medical communities—physicians in ...