Etymology and perception

Etymology and perception
The term medicalization entered academic and medical publications in the 1970s. The expansion of medical authority into the domains of everyday existence was promoted by doctors and was therefore a force to be rejected in the name of specific kinds of liberation.
About 30 years on, the definition of medicalization is more complicated, if for no other reason than because the term is so widely used. Many contemporary critics position pharmaceutical companies in the space once held by doctors as the supposed catalysts of social transformation. Titles such as the The making of a disease or Sex, drugs, and marketing critique the pharmaceutical industry for shunting everyday problems into the domain of professional biomedicine. At the same time, to suggest that society simply reject drugs or drug companies in much the same ways some have suggested it "liberate" itself from the medical system is implausible. The same drugs that treat deviances from societal norms also help many people live their lives. Even scholars who critique the societal implications of brand-name drugs generally remain open to these drugs' curative effects — a far cry from earlier calls for a revolution against the biomedical establishment.
The physician's role in this present-day notion of medicalization is similarly complex. On one hand, the doctor remains an authority figure who prescribes pharmaceuticals to patients. Whereas on the other, ubiquitous consumer-directed advertisements instruct patients to ask for particular drugs by name, thereby creating a conversation between consumer and drug company that threatens to cut the doctor out of the loop. The role of patients in this economy has also changed. Once regarded as passive victims of medicalization, patients can now occupy active positions as advocates, consumers, or even agents of change.