OPINIONS OF ALGERIAN PHYSICIANS CONCERNING MEDICAL-CARE - A FRAGILE OCCUPATIONAL IDENTITY

This paper is aimed at understanding, restitute and analyse the differ ent discourses of Algerian physicians on care activities of three sani tary institutions (hospital paediatric wards, ''peripheral'' structure s and private offices). The paper is focusing on meanings attributed b y health practitioners, whose status can be different (specialised and general practitioners), to the various strains within care activities , but concerning also the various social relationships elaborated toge ther with consumers and coworkers. We are attempting to show how much care activities are baffled and trapped, how deviated they are in cont act with social reality. All the doctors' frame or reference concernin g illlness, medicine, focusing on the technical and scientific dimensi on, is questioned as it is fully disconnected from the daily medical p ractice characterized by its feature of ''daily do it yourself'' and a s it reveals a deeply impaired professional identity of the physicians .