Towards a hospital geography

Abstract

The article´s aim is to introduce "hospital geography" as a new discipline in the field of social sciences, focused on medical institutions and professional health proceedings. Its bases are summarily established and its object is defined by means of three research areas: retrospective studies of hospital insertion in urban space, examinations of hospital internal divisions, both with regard to space and to the migratory flow of people, and discussion of the relationship between hospital and society. Under the pretense of presenting some parameters for the establishement of an unprecedent discipline, this study tries to emphasize a non-conventional approach to hospital leading to a criticism of medical institutions, even if only by means of a few directions for empirical research.