Health professions | AQA A-Level Sociology
Updated: 11 hours ago
For Specification 7192
AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 50–65 minutes
The health professions A-Level Sociology revision topic examines the social role of health professionals and their relationships with patients in contemporary society. AQA requires students studying Health to understand the role of medicine, the health professions and the globalised health industry. Building on the role of medicine [The role of medicine], this lesson focuses more closely on professional roles, expertise, authority and interaction with patients. It also prepares you for the globalised health industry [The globalised health industry], which widens the analysis beyond individual professions and national healthcare settings.
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Explain the role of health professions in contemporary society.
Examine relationships between health professionals and patients.
Analyse professional expertise, authority and power sociologically.
Apply the concepts of social structure, social action, conflict and consensus to health professions.
Evaluate sociological interpretations of health professionals.
Evaluate evidence about professional-patient relationships.
Revision Notes 📚
Health professions A-Level Sociology revision focus
AQA's Health option requires students to understand:
the social construction of health, illness, disability and the body
models of health and illness
unequal health chances by social class, gender, ethnicity and region
inequalities in healthcare provision and access
the nature and social distribution of mental illness
the role of medicine, the health professions and the globalised health industry.
The revision plan separates this final requirement into:
The role of medicine [The role of medicine]
Health professions
The globalised health industry [The globalised health industry].
This lesson therefore concentrates on health professionals as social actors within institutions and professional-patient relationships.
What are health professions?
The AQA specification uses the term health professions but does not provide a detailed formal definition or list of professions students must know.
Within the supplied source boundary, the important sociological focus is therefore on the professional roles connected to health and healthcare and how those roles operate within contemporary society.
A sociologist can ask:
What social role do health professionals perform?
Why is their expertise recognised?
How is professional authority organised?
What relationships develop between professionals and patients?
Are those relationships equal?
How much influence do patients have?
How does professional practice connect to wider social structures?
Health professions as a sociological issue
Health professions are not studied only because they possess specialist knowledge.
Sociology is interested in the social relationships and institutions surrounding that expertise.
This means examining:
professional knowledge → recognised expertise → professional role → relationships with patients → social consequences
Questions about professional roles can therefore become questions about:
authority
power
trust
interaction
social structure
values
inequality.
These are all compatible with the wider themes AQA requires students to apply across Sociology.
The role of health professionals
The lesson objective requires students to explain the role of health professions in contemporary society.
Within the source material, this can be approached through the wider social functions associated with healthcare.
Health professionals operate within relationships concerning:
health
illness
healthcare
medical knowledge
classification
treatment and care decisions
interaction with patients.
The sociological question is not simply:
“What task does this professional perform?”
It is:
“What social role does professional expertise and authority play within healthcare and society?”
Professional expertise
One reason health professions may possess authority is specialist knowledge.
Sociologically, this raises several questions:
Why is particular knowledge recognised as expert?
Who decides who possesses legitimate expertise?
How does specialist knowledge affect relationships with patients?
Does expertise justify unequal authority?
Is professional judgement always accepted?
Specialist knowledge can be socially valuable without making professional authority absolute.
This is an important distinction for evaluation.
Expertise and authority are related but not identical
Expertise concerns specialist knowledge or skill.
Authority concerns recognised influence or decision-making power within social relationships.
A professional may possess expertise that contributes to their authority, but Sociology can still investigate:
how much authority follows from expertise
whether patients accept it
whether authority varies between settings
whether professional decisions can be challenged.
A useful analytical chain is:
specialist knowledge → recognised expertise → authority → interaction with patient
Each stage can be examined sociologically.
Health professions and medical power
The previous lesson, the role of medicine [The role of medicine], introduced the broader issue of medical power.
This lesson narrows that discussion to the people occupying professional roles.
AQA requires power and stratification to run as central sociological themes throughout the course.
Health professional-patient relationships can therefore be analysed by asking:
Does one side possess more recognised knowledge?
Who makes decisions?
Are patients able to challenge professional judgements?
How is authority negotiated?
Are all patients equally able to participate?
The supplied sources do not provide evidence for specific answers to these questions, so they should be treated as analytical issues rather than assumptions.
Professional authority is not the same as total control
A common mistake is to equate professional authority with complete patient powerlessness.
A more careful sociological analysis recognises that:
professionals may possess institutional authority
patients remain social actors
interactions can involve acceptance, negotiation or disagreement.
Therefore:
unequal power ≠ total control
This distinction is especially important when applying the AQA debate between social structure and social action.
Social structure and health professions
AQA requires students to understand the significance of social structure.
A structural approach examines how professional roles exist within wider institutions and organised social arrangements.
Questions might include:
How are professional roles formally organised?
How does institutional authority shape interaction?
How do wider healthcare structures affect professional practice?
Do professionals act within rules and expectations that exist beyond the individual?
A structural explanation therefore moves beyond the personality of an individual professional.
Social action and professional-patient relationships
AQA also requires students to understand social action.
A social-action approach focuses more closely on:
interaction
meanings
interpretation
negotiation.
Applied to professional-patient relationships, this means asking:
How does a patient interpret professional advice?
How does the professional interpret the patient's situation?
Is advice accepted automatically?
Can the patient question or negotiate decisions?
How do meanings develop during interaction?
This provides a more dynamic picture than assuming professional relationships operate identically every time.
Structure and action together
A strong sociological explanation can consider both levels.
For example:
institutional authority → shapes interaction → patient interprets and responds → outcome of interaction
This means the relationship may be structured but not completely predetermined.
💡 Exam tip: When evaluating professional power, consider whether the explanation recognises both institutional authority and patient agency.
Consensus approaches to health professions
AQA requires students to understand the significance of consensus.
A consensus-oriented interpretation might ask whether health professions:
perform socially valued roles
contribute specialist expertise
help meet shared needs
possess authority because society recognises their knowledge.
From this perspective, professional authority may have an important functional basis.
Conflict approaches to health professions
A conflict-oriented analysis raises different questions:
Are professional-patient relationships unequal?
Whose knowledge carries more authority?
Can professional roles reproduce existing inequalities?
Do professionals and patients always have the same interests?
Who has more influence over decisions?
A conflict approach therefore directs attention towards power and inequality.
Again, the supplied specification does not identify particular named Health theories.
The important exam skill is to understand the analytical contrast between consensus and conflict rather than inventing names.
Comparing consensus and conflict
Consensus emphasis | Conflict emphasis |
Professional roles may meet shared social needs | Professional relationships may contain unequal power |
Expertise can justify authority | Authority can be questioned sociologically |
Trust and cooperation may be important | Interests may not always coincide |
Professional knowledge may provide social benefits | Some voices may carry greater influence than others |
Emphasises order and agreement | Emphasises inequality and disagreement |
A strong answer should compare the assumptions behind the perspectives rather than simply listing them.
Professionals and patients
The revision plan specifically requires students to examine relationships between health professionals and patients.
These relationships can be studied at several levels.
Knowledge
Professionals may possess specialist knowledge that patients do not.
Authority
Professional status may provide recognised decision-making influence.
Interaction
Patients and professionals communicate and interpret each other's actions.
Agency
Patients may accept, question or challenge advice.
Social context
Relationships take place within institutions and wider social structures.
An effective sociological explanation brings these elements together.
Knowledge inequalities
A difference in knowledge can affect power within a professional-patient relationship.
If one party possesses recognised specialist knowledge, this may influence:
whose interpretation is treated as authoritative
who recommends action
how decisions are made.
However, a difference in knowledge does not prove that the relationship is oppressive.
A balanced answer should evaluate how knowledge translates into authority and how that authority is used.
Trust in health professionals
Professional relationships may depend partly on trust.
Sociologically, useful questions include:
Why do patients trust professional expertise?
Is trust based on specialist knowledge?
Can trust be withdrawn?
Does professional authority depend partly on patients recognising it?
What happens when professional judgement is questioned?
The supplied specification does not provide a named theory of trust in healthcare, so this should remain an analytical consideration rather than a testable named model.
Patients as active social actors
A patient is not simply the passive recipient of professional behaviour.
Patients may:
interpret advice
ask questions
communicate preferences
agree
disagree
negotiate.
This is important because an explanation that treats professional authority as automatic may underestimate social action.
At the same time, patient agency does not necessarily remove inequalities in knowledge or institutional authority.
The relationship between expertise and patient choice
The existence of patient choice creates an evaluative issue.
If patients can make choices, it may appear that professionals do not possess much power.
However, choices may still occur within relationships structured by:
professional expertise
institutional arrangements
available healthcare
recognised authority.
A sophisticated sociological judgement therefore avoids treating professional power and patient agency as mutually exclusive.
Health professions and social differentiation
AQA's core theme of social differentiation, power and stratification is directly relevant.
A sociologist can ask:
Do professional-patient relationships operate identically for every social group?
Are all patients equally able to understand or challenge professional decisions?
Do wider social inequalities enter healthcare relationships?
Does professional authority interact with differences in social position?
Linking to healthcare inequality
The earlier lesson access to and provision of healthcare [Access to and provision of healthcare] examines inequalities in healthcare.
Health professions are clearly part of healthcare systems, but the topics are distinct.
Health professions | Healthcare access and provision |
Focuses on professional roles and relationships | Focuses on inequalities in obtaining and providing healthcare |
Includes expertise and authority | Includes distribution and access |
Examines professional-patient interaction | Examines whether healthcare opportunities are unequal |
Concerned with sociological interpretations of professions | Concerned with sociological explanations of healthcare inequality |
Do not assume that unequal healthcare access must result from professional behaviour unless there is evidence connecting the two.
Health professions and the social construction of illness
There is also a useful link with the social construction of health and illness [The social construction of health and illness].
Health professionals may be involved in social processes surrounding:
definitions
classifications
interpretation of health problems.
However, avoid the inaccurate statement:
“Health professionals invent illness.”
Social construction concerns social meaning and classification, not the claim that people's experiences are unreal.
Health professions and mental illness
The lessons the nature of mental illness [The nature of mental illness] and the social distribution of mental illness [The social distribution of mental illness] also connect to professional roles.
Mental illness raises sociological questions about:
classification
authority
recording
interpretation.
Health professionals may have recognised roles within these processes.
However, the supplied material does not establish detailed claims about particular professionals or forms of mental-health practice, so these should not be invented.
Professional practice and values
AQA requires students to understand the significance of values throughout Sociology.
Health-professional practice can therefore raise questions such as:
Can professional decisions be completely separated from wider social values?
How do professional values interact with societal values?
Are definitions of appropriate health outcomes always socially neutral?
How may values influence interaction?
Again, AQA's specification does not prescribe a specific answer.
The point is that values can form part of sociological analysis.
Professional practice and social rules
Health professionals perform roles within institutions.
Therefore, professional practice may be shaped by:
formal expectations
institutional arrangements
recognised roles
wider social norms.
This illustrates why Sociology distinguishes between:
the individual professional
and:
the profession as part of a social structure.
An explanation based entirely on an individual professional's personality would be insufficient for explaining systematic patterns in professional practice.
Professional roles can change
If health professions operate within contemporary society, sociologists can ask whether their roles and relationships change as society changes.
However, the supplied specification and revision plan do not provide:
historical trends
particular changes in professional authority
changes in patient relationships
specific contemporary examples.
Do not invent trends simply to create evaluation.
Health professions and the globalised health industry
The next lesson, the globalised health industry [The globalised health industry], broadens the scale of analysis.
The progression is useful:
medicine → professional roles → global health industry
This moves from:
medicine as a social institution
individuals and groups operating in professional roles
the wider global context in which health and medicine operate.
Keeping this progression clear can help with synoptic examination responses.
Evaluating sociological interpretations of health professions
The third learning objective requires students to evaluate sociological interpretations of health professions.
A good evaluation asks not simply whether an explanation is correct, but how much of professional behaviour and relationships it can account for.
Evaluating an explanation focused on professional power
Ask:
Does it demonstrate where professional power comes from?
Does it explain how power operates?
Does it recognise the legitimacy of expertise?
Does it exaggerate the passivity of patients?
Does it apply equally to all healthcare settings?
Is its supporting evidence representative?
An explanation becomes weaker if it treats professional power as automatic without explaining its mechanism.
Evaluating a consensus interpretation
A consensus interpretation may highlight:
specialist knowledge
trust
socially useful roles
cooperation between professionals and patients.
Potential evaluative questions include:
Does this underestimate unequal power?
Does it assume patient and professional interests always coincide?
Does it recognise conflict?
Does it account for patients who question professional authority?
The criticism should be linked directly to the explanation.
Evaluating a conflict interpretation
A conflict interpretation may highlight:
unequal authority
differences in knowledge
competing interests
professional power.
Potential evaluative questions include:
Does it underestimate the benefits of expertise?
Does it treat authority as necessarily harmful?
Does it exaggerate professional control?
Does it recognise patient agency?
Does it account for trust and cooperation?
Balanced AO3 compares what each interpretation explains effectively.
Evidence about professional-patient relationships
AQA states that research design, including its strengths and limitations, should be integral to the study of substantive topics.
Evidence about professional relationships therefore needs methodological evaluation.
Ask:
What setting was studied?
A relationship observed in one healthcare context may not represent every professional-patient relationship.
Which professionals and patients were included?
The sample affects generalisability.
How was power measured?
Power is an abstract concept.
Researchers need an appropriate way of identifying it in practice.
What method was used?
Different methods may reveal different aspects of relationships.
Did the researcher observe behaviour or ask people about it?
Actual behaviour and reported perceptions may not always be identical.
Observation and health professions
The AQA specification includes participant and non-participant observation as research methods.
Observation could potentially be used to examine professional-patient interaction.
Possible topic-specific issues include:
gaining access to healthcare settings
ethical concerns involving sensitive situations
whether participants alter behaviour when observed
interpreting complex social interactions.
The key is to apply methodological issues specifically to professional-patient relationships, not to give a generic methods paragraph.
Interviews and professional relationships
AQA also includes interviews as a research method.
Interviews might potentially provide information about:
how patients perceive professionals
how professionals understand their roles
experiences of authority or decision-making.
However, reported experiences may not always show exactly what happened in an interaction.
This means sociologists should distinguish accounts of professional relationships from direct evidence of behaviour.
Quantitative evidence
Quantitative evidence could potentially identify broader patterns in:
attitudes
reported experiences
decision-making.
Its advantage may be the ability to compare larger numbers of cases.
However, numerical patterns may reveal less about the meaning of interaction.
Qualitative evidence
Qualitative data may reveal detailed experiences and meanings.
This may be useful when examining:
trust
negotiation
perceptions of authority
patient experience.
However, findings from smaller or less representative samples may not necessarily generalise broadly.
Again, the correct judgement depends on the particular study.
A hypothetical professional-patient interaction
Consider this invented examination scenario:
Health Professional A possesses recognised specialist knowledge and recommends a particular course of action. Patient B initially disagrees and asks for alternatives. The professional explains the reasons for the recommendation, and the final decision reflects discussion between both parties.
This could be analysed as evidence of:
professional expertise
unequal knowledge
professional authority
patient agency
negotiation
interaction between structure and action.
It would be inaccurate to conclude automatically that:
the professional has no power
the patient has equal expertise
professional authority is total
every healthcare interaction follows this pattern.
A hypothetical study
Imagine researchers observe 100 consultations and classify who contributes most to the final decision.
Suppose the invented results are:
Main influence on final decision | Number of consultations |
Mainly professional | 52 |
Shared influence | 36 |
Mainly patient | 12 |
The percentage of consultations classified as involving mainly professional influence is:
10052×100=52%
The percentage classified as involving shared influence is:
10036×100=36%
These hypothetical data suggest variation in how decisions are made.
They do not prove:
that professional power is always dominant
that all health professions behave the same way
why the differences occurred
whether the classification of “influence” was valid
whether the sample represents contemporary society as a whole.
💡 Exam skill: Numerical evidence may establish a pattern, but sociological explanation is still required.
Operationalising professional power
If researchers want to study professional power, they must decide how to measure it.
Possible study indicators could concern:
decision-making
speaking time
control over information
ability to reject alternatives.
However, these examples are methodological illustrations rather than AQA-prescribed measures.
A sociologist should ask:
Does the chosen measure genuinely capture professional power?
This is a question of validity.
Avoiding overgeneralisation
Evidence about one group of health professionals should not automatically be generalised to:
all professions
every healthcare system
every patient
every period.
Similarly, evidence about one patient group may not represent all patients.
A strong answer states the scope of the evidence accurately.
Comparison is stronger than isolated description
If you have studied two sociological interpretations from approved course materials, compare them directly.
For example:
Question | Interpretation A | Interpretation B |
Why do professionals possess authority? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
How powerful are patients? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
How is expertise interpreted? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
Does the approach emphasise consensus or conflict? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
What evidence supports it? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
What does it overlook? | Use approved content | Use approved content |
Building an extended response
A strong paragraph can use:
Interpretation → role of profession → professional-patient relationship → evidence/application → evaluation → judgement
For example:
One sociological interpretation views health professionals as [accurate interpretation]. Their authority is explained through [mechanism], which affects patients because [analysis]. Evidence showing [finding] may support this view. However, [counter-evidence or alternative] suggests that patients may possess greater agency than the interpretation assumes. Therefore, the interpretation is most useful for explaining [qualified judgement].
Reaching a reasoned judgement
A conclusion should decide how useful the sociological interpretations are.
Possible questions to address include:
Is professional authority mainly based on valuable expertise?
How unequal are professional-patient relationships?
Do patients possess meaningful agency?
Does professional power vary between situations?
Does a consensus or conflict interpretation better account for the evidence?
Do structural explanations overlook interaction?
Do interaction-focused explanations underestimate institutional power?
Avoid vague conclusions such as:
“Health professions are important but can also have power.”
Instead, make a clear comparative judgement.
Key Words 🔑
Key word | Student-friendly definition | How it may be used in an exam |
Health professions | Professional roles connected with health and healthcare whose sociological significance AQA requires students to study. | Explain their role in contemporary society. |
Professional expertise | Specialist knowledge or skill recognised within a professional role. | Analyse why health professionals may possess authority. |
Professional authority | Recognised influence or decision-making power attached to a professional role. | Examine relationships between health professionals and patients. |
Patient | A person involved in a healthcare relationship with health professionals. | Analyse interaction, power and agency. |
Power | The capacity to influence relationships, decisions or outcomes. | Evaluate professional-patient inequalities. |
Social structure | Wider institutions and organised arrangements that shape social relationships. | Explain how professional authority may be structurally organised. |
Social action | Meaningful action and interpretation by individuals. | Analyse patient negotiation, acceptance or challenge. |
Consensus | Broad agreement about social roles, values or institutions. | Consider whether professional authority is socially accepted because it serves valued functions. |
Conflict | Social disagreement or unequal interests between groups. | Analyse unequal authority within professional relationships. |
Validity | The extent to which research measures what it claims to measure. | Evaluate evidence used to study professional power. |
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Listing health professionals instead of explaining their sociological role
Why this is incorrect: The lesson is about roles, relationships and sociological interpretations, not memorising job titles.
How to improve: Focus on expertise, authority, interaction, power and institutional roles.
Mistake: Assuming expertise and power are the same thing
Why this is incorrect: Specialist knowledge may contribute to authority, but Sociology still needs to explain how expertise becomes social power.
How to improve: Use:
knowledge → recognised expertise → authority → relationship
Mistake: Treating professional power as automatically negative
Why this is incorrect: Professional authority may be connected to socially valued expertise.
How to improve: Evaluate both the possible usefulness and inequalities associated with authority.
Mistake: Treating patients as powerless
Why this is incorrect: Patients remain social actors who may interpret, negotiate or challenge professional advice.
How to improve: Apply both social structure and social action.
Mistake: Assuming patient choice removes professional power
Why this is incorrect: Choice can occur within relationships still shaped by professional expertise and institutional authority.
How to improve: Explain how agency and structure may coexist.
Mistake: Confusing health professions with the role of medicine
Why this is incorrect: They are closely connected but separated in the revision plan.
How to improve: Use the role of medicine [The role of medicine] for medicine as a broader institution, and this lesson for professional roles and patient relationships.
Mistake: Confusing professional relationships with healthcare access
Why this is incorrect: Access and provision form a different AQA specification requirement.
How to improve: Check whether the question concerns access to services or interaction once a professional relationship exists.
Mistake: Using evidence from one profession to generalise to all health professions
Why this is incorrect: Professional roles and contexts may differ.
How to improve: State the scope of the evidence and justify any wider generalisation.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
Identify one course-wide sociological concept that could be used to analyse relationships between health professionals and patients. [1 mark]
Question 2
Explain what is meant by professional authority in a healthcare relationship. [2 marks]
Question 3
Explain two reasons why health professions can be studied sociologically. [4 marks]
Question 4
Explain two ways in which specialist expertise may affect relationships between health professionals and patients. [4 marks]
Question 5
Explain how consensus and conflict approaches may produce different interpretations of health professions. [6 marks]
Question 6
Explain how social structure and social action can both be relevant to professional-patient relationships. [6 marks]
Question 7
Analyse why professional expertise may create unequal authority without making patients completely powerless. [8 marks]
Question 8
Study the following hypothetical data. These figures are invented for examination practice.
Main influence on a healthcare decision | Number of cases |
Mainly professional | 48 |
Shared | 37 |
Mainly patient | 15 |
Calculate the percentage of cases in which influence was classified as either shared or mainly patient. [3 marks]
Question 9
Read the following hypothetical item:
A health professional possesses recognised specialist expertise and recommends a course of action. The patient asks several questions, rejects one option and discusses an alternative with the professional before agreeing on the final decision.
Using the item and your knowledge of Sociology, analyse two features of the professional-patient relationship. [10 marks]
Question 10
Evaluate sociological interpretations of health professions and their relationships with patients. [10 marks]
Answers and indicative mark scheme
Question 1
Any relevant AQA concept, such as:
power
social structure
social action
conflict
consensus
values.
Award 1 mark.
Question 2
Award up to 2 marks for explaining professional authority as the recognised influence or decision-making power attached to a professional role, for example because of specialist expertise or institutional position.
Question 3
Possible answers include:
Health professionals occupy recognised social roles.
Their relationships with patients may involve unequal expertise and authority.
Professional roles operate within wider institutions.
Professional-patient relationships involve social interaction and meanings.
Their authority can be analysed using power, structure, action, consensus or conflict.
Award marks for two developed sociological reasons.
Question 4
Possible answers include:
Specialist expertise may cause professional advice to carry greater authority.
Differences in knowledge may affect decision-making.
Patients may trust professionals because their knowledge is socially recognised.
Expertise may create an unequal relationship without removing patient agency.
Award credit for two clearly developed effects.
Question 5
A developed answer should explain that:
A consensus interpretation may emphasise the socially useful role of specialist expertise, trust and cooperation.
Professional authority may be seen as legitimate because it helps meet shared needs.
A conflict interpretation may emphasise unequal knowledge, decision-making power and potentially different interests.
Professional authority may therefore be examined as an unequal social relationship.
Higher-quality answers will explicitly compare the assumptions and implications of the two approaches.
Question 6
Indicative content:
Social structure directs attention to professional status, institutions and formal authority.
Social action focuses on how professionals and patients interact and interpret each other's behaviour.
Institutional structures may give professionals greater authority.
Patients can still ask questions, negotiate or resist.
The relationship therefore involves interaction between structural power and individual agency.
Question 7
A strong response may explain:
Professional expertise can create an asymmetry of knowledge.
Social recognition of expertise may produce greater authority.
Institutional roles may reinforce professional influence.
However, patients retain the ability to interpret advice.
Patients may seek information, ask questions, disagree or negotiate.
Unequal authority therefore does not mean absolute professional control.
The degree of power may vary between interactions.
The strongest answers will analyse why expertise matters while avoiding the claim that it determines every outcome.
Question 8
Shared or mainly patient:
37+15=52
Total cases:
48+37+15=100
Therefore:
10052×100=52%
Answer: 52%. [3 marks]
Question 9
Two strong application points include:
Professional expertise and authority
The professional possesses recognised specialist knowledge and initially recommends a course of action. This suggests an unequal relationship in expertise and potentially authority.
Patient agency and negotiation
The patient asks questions, rejects an option and participates in reaching the final decision. This illustrates social action and suggests professional power is not absolute.
Students may also analyse the relationship between structure and action, since recognised professional status shapes the interaction while the patient actively participates.
The strongest responses will use details from the item rather than simply describe professional power generically.
Question 10
A strong response should nevertheless:
Explain one sociological interpretation of health professions.
Explain how it understands professional expertise and authority.
Analyse the relationship between health professionals and patients.
Use relevant evidence or item material.
Evaluate whether the interpretation overstates or understates professional power.
Consider patient social action and agency.
Consider the influence of wider social structures.
Compare consensus and conflict interpretations where relevant.
Evaluate the quality and representativeness of supporting evidence.
Reach a reasoned judgement about how useful sociological interpretations are for understanding health professions in contemporary society.
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