Social Issues in Diagnosis:: An Introduction for Students and CliniciansDiagnosis, the classification tool of medicine, serves an important social role. It confers social status to those who diagnose, and it impacts the social status of those diagnosed. Studying diagnosis from a sociological perspective offers clinicians and students a rich and sometimes provocative view of medicine and the cultures in which it is practiced. Social Issues in Diagnosis describes how diagnostic labels and the process of diagnosis are