Steps to professionalization: patient representatives

Patient representation is one of the newest and fastest growing health care occupations. Caplow's model of the process of professionalization is used to examine how this newly formed occupational group has organized itself and has taken initial steps toward professional status. The analysis suggests that Caplow's model does not predict with complete accuracy the path followed by all occupational groups. Much depends on historical, political, economic, and institutional contingencies. In the case of patient representatives, certain events encouraged their rapid growth as a recognized occupation and moved them quickly through the first stages of professionalization. However, the very forces that supported this rapid growth hampered the development of an autonomous professional base, independent of institutional domination, and hindered continued advancement.