BMJ  2007;335:632 (29 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.39349.486493.47

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Doctors rank myocardial infarction as most "prestigious" disease and fibromyalgia as least

Roger Dobson

Abergavenny

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

Fibromyalgia and anxiety neurosis are the illnesses with the lowest prestige among doctors, according to a survey of Norwegian doctors.

The survey found that heart attacks top the prestige league, closely followed by leukaemia, and that neurosurgery is regarded as the most prestigious specialty (Social Science & Medicine doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.07.003).

"Results show that there exists a prestige rank order of diseases as well as of specialties in the medical community," write the authors. "Our interpretation of the data is that diseases and specialties associated with technologically sophisticated, immediate and invasive procedures in vital organs located in the upper parts of the body are given high prestige scores, especially where the typical patient is young or middle-aged."

They say that any such ranking among doctors could have effects on practice.

In the study, the authors, from the University of Oslo and the University of Science and Technology, Oslo, sent . . . [Full text of this article]


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How "prestigious" do the public view disease
Martin Whitehead
bmj.com, 30 Sep 2007 [Full text]
Doctors rank myocardial infarction as most "prestigious" disease and fibromyalgia as least
Maureen Norton
bmj.com, 1 Oct 2007 [Full text]
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