The professional status of physicians in the Nordic countries

The social position of physicians in the Nordic countries reflects the dominant role of the public sector in the delivery of health care. Physicians in Finland, Norway, and Sweden have always been part of a larger corporate social system; unlike physicians in Denmark, they have never been organized independently. This corporatization of medicine, however, has not resulted in the loss of autonomy that some American sociologists would predict. Many physicians, especially in Norway and Finland, have assumed administrative positions within the system that give them control over the work of other physicians--the traditional power described as professional dominance. Yet, the labor market of physicians is segregated by function and sex: physicians working in the municipal health centers (mainly women) have much less autonomy than do physicians working in administration or research and exhibit more of the characteristics of proletarianization.