La médecine sexuelle : genèse d’une spécialisation médicale ?

Abstract

Sexual medicine is becoming a medical specialty. As this presentation of its history shows, this relatively new set of medical practices has thrived since the early 1980s, following the discovery of pharmacological treatments for erection problems. The science of erectile dysfunction has gradually evolved through sexual medicine while expanding to cover questions related to women’s sexuality. The key scientific issues in this new sexual medicine have to do with: basic physiological and endocrinological research on the male and female sexual functions; biomedical clinical research; the consequences of illnesses and dysfunctions on sexual performance; the approval of drugs for treating women’s sexual problems; and the use of testosterone for both men and women. Currently if sexual medicine is organized in strong professional and academic organizations, it must cope with the problems of obtaining academic recognition as a full-fledged medical specialty and of developing educational and training programs for doctors.

Keywords

• sexual medicine
• sexual disorders
• sexology
• medical specialization