The Company Doctor

"To limit the skyrocketing costs of their employees health insurance, companies such as Dow, Chevron, and IBM, as well as many large HMOs, have hired physicians to supervise the medical care they provide. As Elaine Draper argues in The Company Doctor, company doctors are bound by two conflicting ideals: serving the medical needs of their patients while protecting the company's bottom line. Draper analyzes the advent of the corporate physician both as an independent phenomenon, and as an index of contemporary culture, reaching startling conclusions about the intersection of corporate culture with professional autonomy.". "Company doctors are but one example of professionals who have at times ceded their autonomy to corporate management. Physicians provide the prototypical professional case for exploring this phenomenon due to their traditional independence, extensive training, and high levels of prestige. Draper expands the scope of the book - tracing parallel developments in the law, science, and technology - to draw conclusions about changing conditions in the professional workplace, as corporate cultures everywhere adapt to the new realities of the global economy. The Company Doctor provides an examination of the corporatization of American medicine, with far-reaching implications for professionals in many other fields."--BOOK JACKET.