Patients, Consumers and Civil Society

Introduction. No longer a patient: The social construction of the medical consumer. Direct to consumer responsibility: Medical neoliberalism in pharmaceutical advertising and drug development. Making connections: Egg donation, the Internet, and the new reproductive technology marketplace. Selling the ideal birth: Rationalization and re-enchantment in the marketing of maternity care. Too Posh To Push? Comparative perspectives on maternal request caesarean sections in Canada, the US, the UK and Finland. Self-help groups challenge health care systems in the US and UK. From discovery to recovery and beyond: The role of voluntary health sector organizations in the lives of women with breast cancer. The clubhouse model: Mental health consumer–provider partnerships for recovery. Straight from the heart. Speaking for stem cells: Biomedical activism and emerging forms of patienthood. Forging a new commons: Self-help associations in Slovenia and Croatia. Gendered networks and health care privatization. List of Contributors. Advances in medical sociology. Patients, consumers and civil society. Copyright page.