Overview

This is a book about the social situation of the hospitalized child in twentieth-century America. With details and examples drawn from the day-to-day life of children in hospitals, the author shows how children are often frightened and confused by a system that professes to be a benevolent one. Speaking as the mother of children who have been ill and as a dedicated sociologist, Ann Beuf suggests ways in which parents can better prepare their children for the hospital experience, and she recommends changes in medical training and hospital routine that would allow for more respect for the rights of children and adults alike in the confinement of a hospital.

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9780812277661

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Reviews

An outstanding study. . . . A must for all health professionals. -Choice

An outstanding study. . . . A must for all health professionals.-- Choice

An outstanding study. . . . A must for all health professionals.--Choice

""An outstanding study. . . . A must for all health professionals."" * <i>Choice</i> *

Taking Erving Goffman's total institution as her model, Beuf finds that children's hospitals have the same depersonalizing characteristics that he found in Asylums (1961). She acknowledges that like conditions exist for adult patients but notes that they are harder on children because, first, children are already in a situation of enforced helplessness which hospitalization compounds and, second, their sense of self-esteem is still forming and thus more fragile. The structure of this book derives entirely from Beuf's comparison of what she observed in two children's hospitals with Goffman's model and with Talcott Parson's notion of the sick role, which she finds inaccurate in this setting. Beuf points out the discrepancy between the hospital's ostensible function, to help sick children, and its hidden one - to work efficiently and regulate its inmates. She draws up some broad composite-impressions of patient types (the wild kid, the gregarious host, the junior medical student) to illustrate the coping strategies she has observed. Her recommendations are unsurprising: professionals should have courses in child psychology, and other staff members should be trained to deal with patients' emotional needs; for all, jobs and promotions should depend on sensitivity. The problem with Beuf's argument is not that it is invalid but that it is ponderously belabored. The study grew out of her own experiences as a mother of hospitalized children; perhaps if she had drawn more from those experiences the book would read less like an unimaginative master's thesis. (Kirkus Reviews)

An outstanding study. . . . A must for all health professionals. --Choice

Author Information

Ann Hill Beuf was Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of several books, including Red Children in White America, also published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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