[Stereotyping in evaluating the prestige of medical specialties]

The authors asked specialists of five medical disciplines and psychologists, a total of 360 specialists, to define the social prestige of their specialty. The sequence was as follows: surgeons, specialists in internal medicine, paediatricians, gynaecologists and the last place was taken by psychiatrists. The authors reached the conclusion that there exists a general stereotype of evaluation of the prestige of disciplines accepted by the public as well as specialists. It is a universal variable affected by various influences; so far is cannot be defined unequivocally. Negative evaluation of psychiatry is associated probably with the control and repressive function performed by this discipline. The low prestige of the discipline, however, need not lead to inactivity of its specialists.