Book review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Book review - Essay Example After presenting the background, the author shows how â€Å"professionalization of medicine† has affected the residents of Appalachia (Haberland). The author further provides an exploration of the historical perspective of advancements in the context of the Southern Mountains in which differences in gender and social classes are interrelated (Barney 12, 71). The rural areas of mountain countries which included â€Å"Kentucky†, â€Å"Virginia† and â€Å"West Virginia† were also explored by the author and she claims that these countries comprise physicians who were not well trained and only few of them had formal medical training (Haberland). The people of Appalachia, especially the rural population, were self-dependent in regard to different medical aspects, whereas the midwives preferred the medical diagnosis along with its treatment procedures. According to the â€Å"labour historians,† the coal-mine industries provided the best and foremost medica l services; their physicians were claimed to be highly qualified and properly trained in many parts of Appalachia (Haberland). ... Moreover, the natives believed that properly trained and educated medical experts were more expensive as compared to the other untrained and local physicians (27). The issues between the traditional physicians and formally trained medical experts kept on intensifying until the beginning of the twentieth century, after which trained medical experts engaged themselves into alliances with other medical organizations (Barney 17). The author then elaborates how the trained medical experts organized themselves and pursued the traditional physicians in the region by chasing them and demanding their authority to carry out medical services (Haberland). The author’s main focus in the book rests on the â€Å"midwives,† â€Å"clubwomen,† â€Å"nurses† and â€Å"other medical works† (Haberland). The medical trainers, in the beginning, motivated females in particular to provide medical services in a professional manner. As the things progressed, women, who partic ipated in providing the health care services under experts’ supervision, started developing awareness among other locals about the benefits of proper medical treatment under the supervision of formally trained medical staff (Haberland). Moreover, the middle class women health care workers, on behalf of the physicians to provide their medical services, developed awareness among the Appalachian people about the benefits and positive attributes of scientific medicines and to make them understand the differences between the treatment of traditional healers and trained doctors. The author basically feels that a person, who is unaware of the proper medical services because of lack of education, opts for an ordinary healer for medical