IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v15y2025i6p147-d1665140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Clinical Practice Guidelines as a Medical Profession Government Technology in Medellín, Colombia

Author

Listed:
  • Diego Alejandro Estrada-Mesa

    (Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Medellín 050016, Colombia)

  • Luis Felipe Higuita-Gutiérrez

    (Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Medellín 050016, Colombia
    School of Microbiology, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050016, Colombia)

  • Jaiberth Antonio Cardona-Arias

    (School of Microbiology, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín 050016, Colombia)

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are essential for current medical professions since they prevent clinical practice from being based on personal opinions, bias, or individual experience. CPGs are technologies used to govern clinical practice because they guide decision making considering the best available evidence and patients’ values and preferences. In Colombia, studies associated with CPGs and medical professions are scarce; the few available have considered CPGs as a tool for standardization, improving health care efficiency, and quality, and have identified barriers against their implementation. Studies from the medical humanities, sociology, and medical philosophy perspectives are nonexistent. The objective of this study was to analyze the way in which 311 physicians perceive CPGs, the difficulties associated with implementation, the way in which CPGs set and condition individual and collective professional autonomy, and its effect on patient–physician relationships. Our findings revealed that CPGs may be understood as tools used to govern medical judgment and the medical professions with limited implementation in the Colombian health system, but which have become significant mechanisms placing medicine close to the highest scientific, professional, and ethical standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Diego Alejandro Estrada-Mesa & Luis Felipe Higuita-Gutiérrez & Jaiberth Antonio Cardona-Arias, 2025. "Clinical Practice Guidelines as a Medical Profession Government Technology in Medellín, Colombia," Societies, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-18, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:15:y:2025:i:6:p:147-:d:1665140
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/6/147/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/6/147/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Berg, Marc, 1997. "Problems and promises of the protocol," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1081-1088, April.
    2. Armstrong, David, 2002. "Clinical autonomy, individual and collective: the problem of changing doctors' behaviour," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(10), pages 1771-1777, November.
    3. Adriana Ardila-Sierra & César Abadía-Barrero, 2020. "Medical labour under neoliberalism: an ethnographic study in Colombia," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(7), pages 1011-1017, September.
    4. Mykhalovskiy, Eric & Weir, Lorna, 2004. "The problem of evidence-based medicine: directions for social science," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 1059-1069, September.
    5. Lambert, Helen, 2006. "Accounting for EBM: Notions of evidence in medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2633-2645, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diamond-Brown, Lauren, 2018. "“It can be challenging, it can be scary, it can be gratifying”: Obstetricians’ narratives of negotiating patient choice, clinical experience, and standards of care in decision-making," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 48-54.
    2. Timmermans, Stefan & Almeling, Rene, 2009. "Objectification, standardization, and commodification in health care: A conceptual readjustment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 21-27, July.
    3. Perrotta, Manuela & Geampana, Alina, 2020. "The trouble with IVF and randomised control trials: Professional legitimation narratives on time-lapse imaging and evidence-informed care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    4. Mykhalovskiy, Eric & Armstrong, Pat & Armstrong, Hugh & Bourgeault, Ivy & Choiniere, Jackie & Lexchin, Joel & Peters, Suzanne & White, Jerry, 2008. "Qualitative research and the politics of knowledge in an age of evidence: Developing a research-based practice of immanent critique," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 195-203, July.
    5. Baeza, Juan I. & Boaz, Annette & Fraser, Alec, 2016. "The roles of specialisation and evidence-based practice in inter-professional jurisdictions: A qualitative study of stroke services in England, Sweden and Poland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 15-23.
    6. Reich, Adam, 2012. "Disciplined doctors: The electronic medical record and physicians' changing relationship to medical knowledge," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(7), pages 1021-1028.
    7. John Martyn Chamberlain, 2010. "Portfolio-Based Performance Appraisal for Doctors: A Case of Paperwork Compliance," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 15(1), pages 68-76, February.
    8. Broom, Alex & Adams, Jon & Tovey, Philip, 2009. "Evidence-based healthcare in practice: A study of clinician resistance, professional de-skilling, and inter-specialty differentiation in oncology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 192-200, January.
    9. Nigam, Amit, 2013. "How institutional change and individual researchers helped advance clinical guidelines in American health care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 16-22.
    10. Behague, Dominique & Tawiah, Charlotte & Rosato, Mikey & Some, Télésphore & Morrison, Joanna, 2009. "Evidence-based policy-making: The implications of globally-applicable research for context-specific problem-solving in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1539-1546, November.
    11. Diamond-Brown, Lauren, 2016. "The doctor-patient relationship as a toolkit for uncertain clinical decisions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 108-115.
    12. Moes, Floortje & Houwaart, Eddy & Delnoij, Diana & Horstman, Klasien, 2020. "Questions regarding ‘epistemic injustice’ in knowledge-intensive policymaking: Two examples from Dutch health insurance policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    13. Silje Gustafsson & Irene Vikman & Stefan Sävenstedt & Jesper Martinsson, 2015. "Perceptions of needs related to the practice of self‐care for minor illness," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(21-22), pages 3255-3265, November.
    14. Lambert, Helen, 2006. "Accounting for EBM: Notions of evidence in medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2633-2645, June.
    15. Brantnell, Anders & Wagrell, Sofia, 2024. "Implementation of medical technology in management and engineering studies: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    16. Chandler, Clare I.R. & Mangham, Lindsay & Njei, Abanda Ngu & Achonduh, Olivia & Mbacham, Wilfred F. & Wiseman, Virginia, 2012. "‘As a clinician, you are not managing lab results, you are managing the patient’: How the enactment of malaria at health facilities in Cameroon compares with new WHO guidelines for the use of malaria ," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(10), pages 1528-1535.
    17. Teghtsoonian, Katherine, 2009. "Depression and mental health in neoliberal times: A critical analysis of policy and discourse," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 28-35, July.
    18. LaRusso, Maria & Gallego-Pérez, Daniel F. & Abadía-Barrero, César E., 2023. "Untimely care: How the modern logics of coverage and medicine compromise children's health and development," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    19. Borozdina, Ekaterina, 2024. "Instant messengers and health professionals’ agency in Russian clinical settings," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).
    20. Cavanagh, Alice & Shamsheri, Tahmina & Shen, Katrina & Gaber, Jessica & Liauw, Jessica & Vanstone, Meredith & Kouyoumdjian, Fiona, 2022. "Lived experiences of pregnancy and prison through a reproductive justice lens: A qualitative meta-synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:15:y:2025:i:6:p:147-:d:1665140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.