METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MEDICAL STEREOTYPES
The article deals with the methodological aspects of the study of medical stereotypes. The article states that it is wrong to reduce medical stereotypes to prejudice. These stereotypes refer to the kind of professional stereotypes closely associated with the daily life of a person. They are widespread not only among physicians but also among ordinary people. This is mainly connected with the fact that health and disease issues are of top priority at any time and in any historical period. Their study is of high importance because a negative attitude towards medical activity can influence the treatment process. Medical stereotypes are simplified, standardized, stable, value-defined, emotionally intense representations of medical activity. They can be expressed through consciousness (mental stereotypes), language or behavior. Medical mental stereotypes are images, ideas about groups of people, objects and phenomena that have a generalized, emotional and value character. Mental stereotypes are connected with the content-related part of language and culture. Most studies of stereotypes in the field of humanitarian knowledge are devoted to their study. Language medical stereotypes are judgments, stable expressions, comparisons, clichés fixed in the vocabulary of both physicians and patients. They reflect stable, generalized notions of the medical system. Medical mental stereotypes can be objectified in language or in a certain ways of behavior (behavioral stereotypes). Objectivation in this case implies an expression in the outside. It is noted that behavioral stereotypes are based on mental stereotypes. Behavioral stereotypes complete the process of creating medical stereotypes in socio-cultural reality. Medical stereotypes are inherent in both individual and mass public consciousness. As well as any kind of social stereotypes, they are characterized by an ideal and objective character. The stereotypical actions due to their automatic reproduction often are not recognized by people. Therefore, one of the issues under consideration is related to the unconscious nature of stereotypes.