The organizational rejuvenation of osteopathy: A reflection of the decline of professional dominance in medicine

Abstract

Three distinct stages in the relationship between osteopathic medicine and allopathic medicine are discussed. Although it has often been predicted that osteopathy would be absorbed by ‘organized medicine’, it will be argued that its recent organizational rejuvenation must be viewed within the context of the political economy of medical care in the United States. Various ‘strategic elites’ in the past decade have turned to osteopathic medicine as one of several strategies for dealing with the contradictions inherent in capital-intensive medicine, particularly those which contribute to a shortage and geographical maldistribution of primary physicians.