Cancer in the context of contesting and redefining illness, presents an interesting intersection between cancer and the role of medicalization. In the 1970’s, according to Metzl and Herzig, medicalization was “the expansion of medical authority into the domains of everyday existence, which was promoted by doctors.”[i] Having cancer being viewed as a deadly illness, where the body was waging a war, was advanced in such a way that doctors authority and knowledge was seen to be absolute. All the readings explained the promotion of doctors and their authority through cancer to keep the patients healthy and prevent future complications. Between screenings and the treatments of cancer, popular magazines, publicly funded programs and doctors themselves reproduced the discourse that doctors were the only way to preventative and safe lives, free of cancer
Many people turned to self-examination and self-diagnosis instead of going for an embarrassing screening test done by a physician. In the National Film Board video Cancer in Women, guided one through a basic breast self-examination test.[ii] While others just avoided the test all together, with only 54% of women Saskatchewan getting a pelvic examination in 1939,[iii] many avoided the screenings out of embarrassment or lack of symptoms.[iv] Despite all these attempts to avoid the tests, doctors, media, and the government worked hard to display the necessity in seeing a doctor.
Popular magazines were in the forefront of reproducing medicalization through cancer. Most articles in these magazines supported and encouraged testing by licensed physicians, as one of the only ways to ensure complete health. Whether it was the Toronto Star, Maclean’s Magazine, or Chatelaine, they all promoted the expertise of doctors and the preventability of cancer when tested often by a doctor. Stating that there was an increased rate of success when cancer was caught in the early stages by doctors. Not only was basic information on cancer displayed in these articles but they used fear as a tactic to influence Canadians to engage in medicalization, otherwise they ran the risk of losing their life.[v]
Public programs were put into place to increase the percentage of people getting screened, removing some of the socio-economic barriers. The creation of the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), was one of the attempts to increase research through government grants, which eventually increased discussions about nationalizing screening programs for all of Canada. Governmental support increased endorsement of doctors and their authority in people’s lives to end cancer. The increased lobbying of the government through these public programs cemented the status of doctors in Canadian society by getting backing from the public sphere in order to further doctor’s authority over citizens.[vi]
Finally doctors themselves reinforced medicalization in Canadian society, as they promoted their techniques and practices as the best way to curb potential problems. Many doctors stressed the importance of being screened often and that treatment for cancer should be done promptly.[vii] Doctors and their recommendations always revolved around returning to your physician for check-ups and for using the physician as their sole proprietor for health.
Mennonites, who have similar ideology to the Hutterites, took a step back from medicalization and instituted their own mental health institute called the Rosthern Mennonite Youth Farm, where current medical practices were not stressed, rather a form of spiritual health care was their solution to those with mental health problems. Eventually in the 1950’s, they received aid for their institute from the provincial government. The Mennonite Youth Farm was an organization that worked against the experience of medicalization by the rest of society, through cancer.[viii]
[i] Metzl, Jonathan & Rebecca Herzog, “Medicalization in the 21st Century: Introduction,” Lancet, 369 (2007): 97.
[ii] Hadenko, Mandy, “The Challenge of Developing and Publicizing Cervical Screening Programs: A Canadian Perspective,” in Cheryl Krasnick Warsh (Ed), Gender, Health and Popular Culture: Historical Perspectives, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011: 144.
[iii] Mitchinson, Wendy, “The Womanly Body: A Cancer Threat,” in Body Failure: Medical Views of Women, 1900-1950, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013: 222.
[iv] Miele, Richelle and Juanne Clarke, “‘We Remain Very Much the Second Sex’: The Constructions of Prostate Cancer in Popular News Magazines, 2000-2010,” American Journal of Men’s Health, 8, 1 (2014): 16.
[v] Hadenko, “The Challenge of Developing and Publicizing Cervical Screening Programs”: 133-142; Miele, and Clarke, “We Remain Very Much the Second Sex’.”
[vi] Hadenko, “The Challenge of Developing and Publicizing Cervical Screening Programs”: 129-136; Mitchinson, “The Womanly Body”; Jasen, Patricia, “Malignant Histories: Psychosomatic Medicine and the Female Cancer Patient in the Postwar Era,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 20, 2 (2003): 285-286.
[vii] Ibid.,232, 233.
[viii] Dyck, Erika. “Mennonites, Healthcare Institutions, and Modernity: The Mennonite Youth Farm in Rosthern, Saskatchewan.” Journal Of Mennonite Studies 29, (January 2011): 91-104.