How is the medical profession regulated in a ‘risk society’. This is the core question of John M. Chamberlain‘s Medical Regulation, Fitness to Practice and Revalidation: A Critical Introduction (Policy Press, 2015). Chamberlain, an associate professor of medical criminology at the University of Southampton, explores both the history of the medical profession as well as recent attempts to regulate and manage medicine’s relationship with society. The book focuses on how practitioners are judged to be fit, or not, to practice, in the context of both transformations of the profession and high profile scandals. The text brings together an analysis of the impact of new modes of regulation, particularly in terms of numbers of doctors sanctioned for poor practice, with theories of the sociology of professions and risk society. Focused on the UK, the book has important global implications and is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary medical practice, as well as those working on professions, risk and sociology more generally.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices