The organisation of allied health professionals in Australian general hospitals

This research is a case study in the sociology of professions. It reports on the Australian allied health professions, a group that has rarely been the subject of sustained research. The central purpose of the research is to examine the impact of local workplace organisation in Australian general hospitals in the public sector on the position of the allied health professions and their autonomy. Further, the research seeks to unbundle the competing claims about the utility of alternative organisational approaches and to examine how the allied health professions negotiate inter-professional relationships as a consequence of particular organisational approaches. The research draws on Eliot Freidson's professional dominance theory (medical dominance theory) as the underpinning theoretical framework. Medical dominance theory portrays the allied health professions as inevitably subject to medical dominance and subordination, a proposition which is critically appraised through a contemporary analysis of local workplace arrangements. To address these issues three models of allied health profession organisation were identified; the classical medical model, division of allied health model and the unit dispersement model. The research method involved a comparative case study approach and included fifty-three interviews, document analysis, observation strategies and key informants over a two year period. Data collection was guided by seventeen themes of inquiry which were identified from a multiple methods approach as likely to be important in a comparative analysis of the organisation of the allied health professions.