See the Application of the Sick Role Theory in the Modern Society Through the Risk Reducing Breast Surgery

CCN2040 Sociology for Health Studies

Term Paper

Topic: 3

Title: See the Application of the Sick Role Theory in the Modern Society through the Risk Reducing Breast Surgery

Name: Wong Lok Sang

Student ID: 15100996A

Tutorial group: 102C

Date of Submission: 20/11/2015                        

Words: 2302

For marker’s ref:

Introduction

        Risk reducing breast surgery has become progressively popular nowadays. Quite a number of women undertook the surgery because they wanted to prevent breast cancer. Around 10% of breast cancer cases associate with the abnormality of gene BRCA1 or BRCA2, which aid in repairing and growing of the breast (Breast Cancer Risk Factors: Genetics., n.d.). With the risk reducing breast surgery, the rate of breast cancer can be limited to only 5% (Surgery to Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer., n.d.). This encouraging figure boosts the number of women who concern of the atypical genes in their body to attempt the operation to lessen the possibility of getting a breast cancer.

        The Sick Role theory, which is developed by Talcott Parsons in 1951, suggested that sickness is a social problem. In the aspect of functionalism, they see people who can perform ordinary activities as a norm, and as a deviance if they could not perform the function of his or her role. For the sick role theory, Parsons suggested that people who suffer from sickness should be excluded from the social role and social obligation (Definition of Sick Role Theory, n.d.). But this theory is often being criticized because it can only be applied in specific cases. In this paper, the case of risk reducing breast surgery will be used to discuss to what extent the sick role theory could be applied to the relationship between medical professional and patient in our modern society.

Definition of the Sick Role Theory

        The sick role is a role that enjoys particular rights and obligations because of the sickness-induced malfunctioning to the society. Parsons viewed these patients as deviance because they are not able to function to reach the societal expectation and they should have a different patterned behavior when comparing to the norm. Furthermore, as suffering from sickness is not a choice of the patients, they do not have to be responsible for their situations and these are the rights for the sick. Apart from these rights, they have obligations too. Parsons assumed a patient should try to recover and to become the norm again because being sick is not a desirable state which adversely affect the societies. Moreover, the patient should seek for professional help to withdraw from the sick role (Segall, 1976).