Social prestige of internal medicine

155 significant categories that function within the sys‐ tem of social inequalities.9 When we understand it in this manner, prestige, as the autonomous principle of stratification, is a specific good that is always relational, because it is assessed by com‐ paring categories that are placed in higher or low‐ er positions and altogether form a hierarchy. In the essentially subjective assessment of pres‐ tige, various criteria are taken into account, such as objective features or values commonly recog‐ nized in society, including material status, edu‐ cation, qualifications, power, position, authority, social utility, validity, and even the necessity of the needs being secured, independence, level of responsibility, occupational risk, dedication, or personal qualifications, among others.9 The purpose of the present work was to deter‐ mine the position of internal medicine in the hi‐ erarchy of prestige among current medical sub‐ specialties in Poland and to analyze the sociode‐ mographic factors determining its perception.