Sickness certification system in the United Kingdom: Doctors are indeed agents of social control

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.461

BMJ 2004;328:461 (21 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.461

Letter

Sickness certification system in the United Kingdom

Doctors are indeed agents of social control

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Doctors are agents of social control and get paidaccordingly. And you'd better believe it because it ain't aboutto change.

A cold ain't a cold until you say it is. A person ain't fitto drive until you say they are, and nobody ain't fit to goback to work until you say they are.

Enter the patient. There are the driven folk, those withoutinsight, who want you to look under the bonnet, twiddle a fewknobs, and send them magically repaired back on their way. Theseare the people you encourage to take time off work because it'sall you can do, and often they take no notice.

Then you have the amorphous dispossessed. Those who have towork and don't feel up to it; those who experience the drudgeryof manual work when there is depression or pain; those out ofwork and under . . . [Full text of this article]

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James N Hardy, general practitioner principal

Bethnal Green Health Centre, London E2 6LL james.hardy@nhs.net

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