Health, Illness and Medicine
Chapter 13  Discussion Questions

• How far is the lay-professional divide being eroded as more and more people become private 'consumers' of medicine in the medical market?
  
• What are the health care implications of an ageing population? What social and institutional changes are likely to accompany such a shift (for example, in housing patterns, family and government support, the pattern and nature of disease etc)?
  
• Which factors shape a person's perception of what a health risk is? Students might think in terms of lifestyle choices associated with taking drugs, casual sex and/or contemporary consumer culture for example.
  
• Does 'new age' medicine work? If it does, what implications are there for the bio-medical model of illness?