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Sociologists are increasingly using field theory to examine social stability and change. Scholars working in this area conceptualize society as comprised of a set of strategic action fields positioned in various structural relationships to one another (Fligstein and McAdam 2012). Yet, field theory often overlooks law and its relationship to other fields and focuses on structural rather than processual relationships among fields. We synthesize field theory and socio-legal theory to examine relationships between legal fields (Edelman 2016) and healthcare fields. Drawing on empirical cases from the sociological and socio-legal literature, we theorize a set of processes that help to sustain, alter, or destroy relationships among fields. Our discussion will illuminate how a fields perspective offers useful tools for examining the intersection of law and healthcare by affording a wide variety of comparisons across organizational, institutional, and geographic units of analysis. 

Medical boards are responsible for disciplining physicians who inflict egregious harm on their patients, yet they often fail to do so. This Article develops a cultural and organizational framework for explaining why boards so often fail to discipline physicians. The framework highlights three types of barriers that impede board action: 1) input barriers that prevent hospitals and clinics from reporting harm to boards; 2) processing barriers that prevent boards from taking sufficient action against physicians who do harm; and 3) output barriers that prevent boards from sharing information about physicians who do harm with other disciplinary agencies like other medical boards and law enforcement. The Article demonstrates how the interplay between these barriers reduces the likelihood that boards will discipline physicians who harm patients and also shows how boards behave like other kinds of organizations in similar situations. The Article concludes with a set of solutions to overcoming each type of barrier and explains why an organizational and cultural perspective is essential for identifying gaps between boards’ stated goals and their actions as well as for developing effective solutions.