Medicalization: A historical perspective

Abstract

The spectrum of human condition is bell shaped, and an area around the midpoint has been chosen arbitrarily to define as the norm. Physically and mentally maladaptive outliers have been treated as diseases and fell into the realm of medicine. Many “nondisease” states can creep up into medicine and with time become medicalized through medicalization because of redefining many conditions long considered social or psychological phenomena as disease states. Processes regarded as natural but also maladaptive are now looked at as diseases. Major factors in the evolution of medicalization include wellness obsession, pharmaceutical industry, statistical and research saturation, media, Internet, and litigation. Unnecessary medicalization leads to huge social and financial cost as well as increased anxiety and risk for complication from further workups for incidental or clinically unimportant findings. In this special article, our concrete steps are provided to facilitate demedicalization based on professionalism of physicians.