Medical Encounters: The Experience of Illness and Treatment

Originally published in 1977, this book looks at medical sociology from the inside. Each chapter has been written by sociologists who themselves were patients – participant observers. Each experienced problems and sought solutions in the health services, at the same time bringing their training in social science to the analysis of experience. This is a unique contribution to medical sociology, bringing a directness to the recorded experiences.

After a BA Sociology degree at Sheffield, Alan Davis, who died in 1996, completed a research project on ‘young men and work attitudes’ (funded by the War Office). He was a lecturer in the newly created Department of Sociology at Aberdeen University from 1976-7, then moved to the Centre for Social Studies in Aberdeen to undertake full-time research as part of a team working on a programme on ‘Objectives and Needs in Medical and Social Care Systems.’ It was during this period that he was most active in British Medical Sociology, authoring and editing several books and papers. He also helped to set up and was the first convenor of‚ the Social Psychology Study Group of the BSA, a group which attempted to put micro-sociology onto the BSA map. In 1979 Alan Davis moved to Australia, to the then Department of Social Work at the University of Sydney. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of a full 4-year sociology programme at the University of Sydney from 1991 onwards, as well as in its continuing development.

Gordon Horobin (1926–1987) studied sociology at University College, Leicester. After graduating he took up a lecturing post at the University of Hull and in 1963 moved to the MRC Medical Sociology Unit in Aberdeen, a pioneering institution which started the careers of many people prominent in the field of medical sociology. Gordon Horobin was the author of several papers and books including Medical Encounters now being reissued by Routledge 50 years after its first publication. He went on to become Assistant Director at the MRC Medical Sociology Unit which eventually moved to Glasgow in 1985. He then moved to the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the University of Aberdeen.