Medicalization of the modern Ukrainian society: pro et contra

Abstract

Medicine has a great and constantly increasing power over people, it continues to acquire new abilities to preserve and restore human health. An increasing influence of medicine on different spheres of the social life of the man brought forth the problem of medicalization, typical for different countries of the world. The authors of the article analyse the content of the concept of «medicalization», show positive and negative aspects of this process as well as characterize the main agents, which take a direct part in the spread of medicalization in the Ukrainian society. In their conclusion the authors emphasize that the modern man should make aware of the necessity of the healthy lifestyle and a correct use of the abilities of medicine, where the main task of doctors and society should consist in exclusion of the situation when the healthy man as Homo sapiens becomes a patient and turns into a new unique species, Homo medicus, who is completely dependent upon medicine.