Stratification and Hospital Care: I. The Performance of the Medical Interne (1961)

Sociologists in general, and medical sociologists in particular, are committed to the proposition that the stratification system within an organization is a consequential feature affecting task performance. Studies which actually demonstrate such consequences, however, are rare. This is the first of two papers which demonstrate that differentially stratified hospital units vary in their performance of medical tasks. The two papers involve the measurement of performance from three standard perspectives: the objective (based on medical records); the reputational (based on superiors’ ratings of the interne); and the subjective (reports by internes on their own behavior). The present paper deals with the latter two kinds of evidence. The data indicate that, from the standpoint of both the interne’s report and the ratings assigned to him by his medical superiors, stratification is related to medical performance.