This thesis provides a social history of the introduction the Pap smear and the expansion of population-based cervical screening programs in Australia throughout the latter decades of the twentieth century. By placing cervical screening in a broad social context, this history helps to reveal the complex interrelationship between developments in scientific medicine, social, political and economic concerns, changing beliefs and attitudes, and the growing influence of commercialisation and consumerism. It also highlights the tendency for public health strategies to serve as a means of social and moral control. Furthermore, the thesis examines the conflict between the population-based approach of public health and the concern of clinicians for the welfare of individual patients. This conflict has emerged in other areas of medicine. In casting light on such conflict, the thesis will provide historical insight into reasons for why medicine is often perceived to be in a state of crisis today.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/272562 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Read, Jennifer Deirdre, History & Philosophy, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. History & Philosophy |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Read Jennifer Deirdre., http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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