Theorising the social within physician decision making.

Abstract

Explores the underlying behavioral processes influencing the clinical behavior of physicians toward their patients. Utilizing educational and social influence explanatory models as a baseline, we sought how each, through peer group settings, would affect clinical specific practice decisions. Focusing on family physicians in Israel who were engaged in ongoing professional peer group meetings, it is suggested that health decisions affecting clinical practice are not universal but particularistic and depend a great deal on the transfer of clinical knowledge through selective social networks. Health managers, utilizing these findings, can therefore intervene in the formation of clinical practice decisions. This can be done primarily through management policy to induce the formation of specific types of peer group social networks.