The Experts below are selected from a list of 121422 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Paul Farmer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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misdiagnosis mistreatment and harm when medical care ignores Social forces
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2020Co-Authors: Seth M Holmes, Helena Hansen, Angela Jenks, Scott Stonington, Michelle Morse, Jeremy A Greene, Keith Wailoo, Michael Marmot, Paul FarmerAbstract:When Medical Care Ignores Social Forces The Case Studies in Social Medicine demonstrate that when physicians use only biologic or individual behavioral interventions to treat diseases that stem fro...
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case studies in Social Medicine attending to structural forces in clinical practice
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2018Co-Authors: Scott Stonington, Seth M Holmes, Helena Hansen, Jeremy A Greene, Keith Wailoo, Paul Farmer, Debra Malina, Stephen Morrissey, Michael MarmotAbstract:Case Studies in Social Medicine Our new Case Studies in Social Medicine series highlights the importance of Social concepts and context to clinical Medicine. Articles in the series will discuss cli...
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all health is global health all Medicine is Social Medicine integrating the Social sciences into the preclinical curriculum
Academic Medicine, 2016Co-Authors: Jennifer Kasper, Jeremy A Greene, Paul Farmer, David S JonesAbstract:As physicians work to achieve optimal health outcomes for their patients, they often struggle to address the issues that arise outside the clinic. Social, economic, and political factors influence patients' burden of disease, access to treatment, and health outcomes. This challenge has motivated recent calls for increased attention to the Social determinants of health. At the same time, advocates have called for increased attention to global health. Each year, more U.S. medical students participate in global health experiences. Yet, the global health training that is available varies widely. The discipline of Social Medicine, which attends to the Social determinants of disease, Social meanings of disease, and Social responses to disease, offers a solution to both challenges. The analyses and techniques of Social Medicine provide an invaluable toolkit for providing health care in the United States and abroad.In 2007, Harvard Medical School implemented a new course, required for all first-year students, that teaches Social Medicine in a way that integrates global health. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of including Social Medicine and global health in the preclinical curriculum; describe Harvard Medical School's innovative, integrated approach to teaching these disciplines, which can be used at other medical schools; and explore the barriers that educators may face in implementing such a curriculum, including resistance from students. Such a course can equip medical students with the knowledge and tools that they will need to address complex health problems in the United States and abroad.
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the necessity of Social Medicine in medical education
Academic Medicine, 2015Co-Authors: Michael Westerhaus, Amy Finnegan, Mona Haidar, Arthur Kleinman, Joia S Mukherjee, Paul FarmerAbstract:Research and clinical experience reliably and repeatedly demonstrate that the determinants of health are most accurately conceptualized as bioSocial phenomena, in which health and disease emerge through the interaction between biology and the Social environment. Increased appreciation of bioSocial approaches have already driven change in premedical education and focused attention on population health in current U.S. health care reform. Medical education, however, places primary emphasis on bioMedicine and often fails to emphasize and educate students and trainees about the Social forces that shape disease and illness patterns. The authors of this Commentary argue that medical education requires a comprehensive transformation to incorporate rigorous bioSocial training to ensure that all future health professionals are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to practice Social Medicine. Three distinct models for accomplishing such transformation are presented: SocMed's monthlong, elective courses in Northern Uganda and Haiti; Harvard Medical School's semester-long, required Social Medicine course; and the Lebanese American University's curricular integration of Social Medicine throughout its entire four-year curriculum. Successful implementation of Social Medicine training requires the institutionalization of bioSocial curricula; the utilization of innovative, engaging pedagogies; and the involvement of health professions students from broad demographic backgrounds and with all career interests. The achievement of such transformational and necessary change to medical education will prepare future health practitioners working in all settings to respond more proactively and comprehensively to the health needs of all populations.
Jeremy A Greene - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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misdiagnosis mistreatment and harm when medical care ignores Social forces
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2020Co-Authors: Seth M Holmes, Helena Hansen, Angela Jenks, Scott Stonington, Michelle Morse, Jeremy A Greene, Keith Wailoo, Michael Marmot, Paul FarmerAbstract:When Medical Care Ignores Social Forces The Case Studies in Social Medicine demonstrate that when physicians use only biologic or individual behavioral interventions to treat diseases that stem fro...
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case studies in Social Medicine attending to structural forces in clinical practice
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2018Co-Authors: Scott Stonington, Seth M Holmes, Helena Hansen, Jeremy A Greene, Keith Wailoo, Paul Farmer, Debra Malina, Stephen Morrissey, Michael MarmotAbstract:Case Studies in Social Medicine Our new Case Studies in Social Medicine series highlights the importance of Social concepts and context to clinical Medicine. Articles in the series will discuss cli...
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putting the patient back together Social Medicine network Medicine and the limits of reductionism
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2017Co-Authors: Jeremy A Greene, Joseph LoscalzoAbstract:Network biologists, in focusing on interrelational structures emerging from complex interactions among genes, proteins, internal milieu, and external environment, echo the Social science view that biomedical reductionism misses crucial aspects of human disease.
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all health is global health all Medicine is Social Medicine integrating the Social sciences into the preclinical curriculum
Academic Medicine, 2016Co-Authors: Jennifer Kasper, Jeremy A Greene, Paul Farmer, David S JonesAbstract:As physicians work to achieve optimal health outcomes for their patients, they often struggle to address the issues that arise outside the clinic. Social, economic, and political factors influence patients' burden of disease, access to treatment, and health outcomes. This challenge has motivated recent calls for increased attention to the Social determinants of health. At the same time, advocates have called for increased attention to global health. Each year, more U.S. medical students participate in global health experiences. Yet, the global health training that is available varies widely. The discipline of Social Medicine, which attends to the Social determinants of disease, Social meanings of disease, and Social responses to disease, offers a solution to both challenges. The analyses and techniques of Social Medicine provide an invaluable toolkit for providing health care in the United States and abroad.In 2007, Harvard Medical School implemented a new course, required for all first-year students, that teaches Social Medicine in a way that integrates global health. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of including Social Medicine and global health in the preclinical curriculum; describe Harvard Medical School's innovative, integrated approach to teaching these disciplines, which can be used at other medical schools; and explore the barriers that educators may face in implementing such a curriculum, including resistance from students. Such a course can equip medical students with the knowledge and tools that they will need to address complex health problems in the United States and abroad.
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locating global health in Social Medicine
Global Public Health, 2014Co-Authors: Seth M Holmes, Jeremy A Greene, Scott StoningtonAbstract:Global health's goal to address health issues across great sociocultural and socioeconomic gradients worldwide requires a sophisticated approach to the Social root causes of disease and the Social context of interventions. This is especially true today as the focus of global health work is actively broadened from acute to chronic and from infectious to non-communicable diseases. To respond to these complex bioSocial problems, we propose the recent expansion of interest in the field of global health should look to the older field of Social Medicine, a shared domain of Social and medical sciences that offers critical analytic and methodological tools to elucidate who gets sick, why and what we can do about it. Social Medicine is a rich and relatively untapped resource for understanding the hybrid biological and Social basis of global health problems. Global health can learn much from Social Medicine to help practitioners understand the Social behaviour, Social structure, Social networks, cultural difference and Social context of ethical action central to the success or failure of global health's important agendas. This understanding - of global health as global Social Medicine - can coalesce global health's unclear identity into a coherent framework effective for addressing the world's most pressing health issues.
Lucas Trout - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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covid 19 requires a Social Medicine response
Frontiers in Sociology, 2020Co-Authors: Lucas Trout, Arthur KleinmanAbstract:Covid-19 is an inherently Social disease, with exposure, illness, care, and outcomes stratified along familiar Social, economic, and racial lines. However, interventions from public health and clinical Medicine have focused primarily on the scale-up of technical and biomedical solutions that fail to address the Social contexts driving its distribution and burden. Fused with a moment of reckoning with racial injustice and economic inequality in the U.S. and across the world, these disparities charge policy leaders to develop, study, and share a response grounded in Social Medicine. As a yardstick for formulating, evaluating, and implementing health policy and care delivery, Social Medicine recommends at least three things: integrating health, Social, and economic responses; bringing care to the points of greatest need; and focusing on broad equity-driven reforms in the pandemic's wake. With these tools, Covid-19 presents us with an opportunity to address the inequities that the disease highlights, exploits, and may otherwise entrench.
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arctic suicide Social Medicine and the purview of care in global mental health
Health and Human Rights, 2020Co-Authors: Lucas Trout, Lisa WexlerAbstract:Youth suicide is a significant health disparity in circumpolar indigenous communities, with devastating impacts at individual, family, and community levels. This study draws on structured interviews and ethnographic work with health professionals in the Alaskan Arctic to examine the meanings assigned to Alaska Native youth suicide, as well as the health systems that shape clinicians' practices of care. By defining suicide as psychogenic on the one hand, and as an index of Social suffering on the other, its solutions are brought into focus and circumscribed in particular and patterned ways. We contrast psychiatric and Social explanatory models, bureaucratic and relational forms of care, and biomedical and bioSocial models for care delivery. Within the broader context of global mental health, this study suggests steps for linking caregiving to the health and Social equity agenda of Social Medicine and for operationalizing commitments to health as a human right.
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Social Medicine in practice realizing the american indian and alaska native right to health
Health and Human Rights, 2018Co-Authors: Lucas Trout, Corina Kramer, Lois FischerAbstract:American Indians and Alaska Natives have long held a state-conferred right to health, yet Indigenous communities across the United States continue to experience significant health and health care disparities. In this paper we posit two contributing factors: Socialization for scarcity in tribal health care, and a slowness among health workers and allied health and Social scientists to make explicit and convincing linkages between Social determinants of health and human rights. We then summarize one attempt to align tribal health care delivery in the Alaskan Arctic with a rights-based approach, highlighting both the role of Social and structural determinants as causes of health disparities and the role of Social and structural interventions in local efforts to chart a future of equal health for our home.
Jennifer Kasper - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Social Medicine grand rounds a collaborative education hub to promote action on Social determinants of health across community sectors in rural alaska
Social Medicine, 2018Co-Authors: Lucas Jacob Trout, Kristine Salters, Robert Inglis, Matthew Tobey, Jennifer Kasper, Stuart N HarrisAbstract:Background: The connection between Social stratification and health inequalities in the United States suggests the need for medical education and practice to address Social determinants of health as a key condition for achieving health equity. This reading of the project of Social Medicine—to wed health care delivery to a pragmatic and operationalized equity agenda—is particularly relevant to tribal health systems, where patient populations bear a disparate burden of injury and disease, where Social and historical forces play a large role in the generation and maintenance of these health disparities, and where Social and economic forces constrain the availability, accessibility, and efficacy of health care. Objectives: This paper describes the conceptual framework and educational materials from a Social Medicine grand rounds program in an Alaskan arctic tribal health system, aimed at building clinical, organizational, and community capacity to address Social determinants of health. Led by the Maniilaq Association Division of Social Medicine with partners at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Social Medicine grand rounds bring together hospital and village clinic-based care teams, Social and tribal service workers, and community members to study and apply Social Medicine perspectives to health care delivery across 12 circumpolar Alaska Native villages. The model utilizes a case-based curriculum to drive clinical-community collaboration and critical analysis of health care delivery challenges focused on four broad priority areas established by tribal leadership: maternal and child health, chronic disease, mental health, and infectious disease. Methods: The Social Medicine grand rounds program was piloted in April 2017 and will be formally launched in November 2017. Researchers will utilize a mixed methods approach, pairing analysis of electronic health record data with participant interviews and surveys to investigate changes in provider practice patterns relating to action on Social determinants of health, community and cross-sector partnerships, and revisions to health system policies and protocols over one year of programming. Pre-mid-post surveys collected before the program begins, at the six-month mark, and after a year of programming will assess participants’ knowledge, readiness, and action to address Social determinants of health. A Social needs assessment protocol administered in the outpatient clinic will evaluate patients’ met and unmet needs, and a discrete range of health outcomes will be tracked using patient registries in the electronic health record. Discussion: We hypothesize that by maneuvering Social determinants of health into the sphere of moral concern of health workers; by underscoring the clinical relevance and utility of Social theory and analysis; by strengthening community partnerships linking primary care to Social and tribal services; and by building a practical skill set among health workers to include Social and structural interventions as part of the core clinical repertoire, Social Medicine education may help to mitigate the impacts of Social stratification on health outcomes in Northwest Alaska. Ultimately, such projects can play a minor role in redressing structures of inequality that both produce and are propagated by poor health. Conclusion: Social Medicine grand rounds examine how Social, historical, and structural forces are embodied as illness and injury in individuals, as well as how these forces shape medical efficacy, illness experience, and standard of care. The model serves to build inter-professional communities of practice for learning, deliberation, and action on Social determinants of health in Northwest Alaska, and to build and leverage shared clinical, education, and training infrastructure with academic partners to expand the reach of the program and reduce health inequities. Keywords: Social Medicine, Alaska Native, health equity, Social determinants of health. OBJECTIVES: This paper describes the conceptual framework and educational materials from a Social Medicine grand rounds program in an Alaskan arctic tribal health system, aimed at building clinical, organizational, and community capacity to address Social determinants of health. Led by the Maniilaq Association Division of Social Medicine with partners at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Social Medicine grand rounds bring together hospital and village clinic-based care teams, Social and tribal service workers, and community members to study and apply Social Medicine perspectives to health care delivery across 12 circumpolar Alaska Native villages. The model utilizes a case-based curriculum to drive clinical-community collaboration and critical analysis of health care delivery challenges focused on four priority areas established by tribal leadership: maternal and child health, chronic disease, mental health, and infectious disease. METHODS: The Social Medicine grand rounds program was piloted in April 2017 and will be formally launched in November 2017. Researchers will utilize a mixed methods approach, pairing analysis of electronic health record data with participant interviews and pre-post survey data to investigate changes in provider practice patterns relating to Social determinants of health, community and cross-sector partnerships, and revisions to health system policies and protocols over one year of programming. Pre-mid-post surveys collected before the program begins, at the six-month mark, and after a year of programming will assess participants’ knowledge, readiness, and action to address Social determinants of health. A Social needs assessment protocol administered in the outpatient clinic will evaluate patients’ met and unmet needs, and a discrete range of health outcomes will be tracked using patient registries in the electronic health record. DISCUSSION: We hypothesize that by maneuvering Social determinants of health into the sphere of moral concern of health workers; by underscoring the clinical relevance and utility of Social theory and analysis; by strengthening community partnerships linking primary care to Social and tribal services; and by building a practical skill set among health workers to include Social and structural interventions as part of the core clinical repertoire, grand rounds may contribute to the mitigation of the impacts of Social stratification on health outcomes in Northwest Alaska. CONCLUSION: Social Medicine grand rounds examine how Social, historical, and structural forces are embodied as illness and injury in individuals, as well as how these forces shape medical efficacy, illness experience, and standard of care. The model serves to build inter-professional communities of practice for learning, deliberation, and action on Social determinants of health in Northwest Alaska, and to build and leverage shared clinical, education, and training infrastructure with academic partners to expand the reach of the program and reduce health inequities.
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jornadas de medicina Social un nucleo colaborativo de educacion para promover la accion sobre los determinantes Sociales de la salud en sectores comunitarios de la alaska rural Social Medicine grand rounds a collaborative education hub to promote act
Medicina Social, 2018Co-Authors: Lucas Trout Trout, Kristine Salters, Matthew Tobey, Rob Inglis, Jennifer KasperAbstract:TRASFONDO: La estratificacion de la carga de morbilidad en EEUU a partir de diferencias Sociales, economicas y raciales apunta a la necesidad de formatos de educacion y practica medicas que vinculen el analisis interdisciplinario de las desigualdades Sociales a intervenciones Sociales y estructurales concretas como parte del ambito esencial del cuidado clinico. Esta lectura del proyecto de la medicina Social - en la cual se une el suministro de servicios de salud a una agenda de equidad pragmatica y operativizada - resulta particularmente relevante en sistemas de salud tribales, en los cuales la poblacion de los pacientes asume una carga dispar de lesiones y enfermedades, en los cuales fuerzas Sociales e historicas juegan un papel importante en la produccion y mantenimiento de estas disparidades sanitarias, y en los cuales fuerzas economicas y Sociales limitan la disponibilidad, accesibilidad y eficacia de los servicios de salud. OBJETIVOS: Este articulo describe el marco conceptual y materiales educativos de un programa de medicina Social Jornadas en un sistema de salud tribal en Alaska Septentrional, dirigido hacia el desarrollo de capacidades clinicas, organizacionales, y comunitarias para abordar los determinantes Sociales de la salud. Lideradas por la Division de Medicina Social de la Asociacion Maniilaq y en conjunto con colaboradores de la Escuela de Medicina de Harvard y el Hospital General de Massachusetts, los Jornadas de medicina Social unen a los equipos de cuidado clinico de hospitales y pueblos con trabajadores de servicio Social y tribal y con miembros de la comunidad para estudiar y aplicar perspectivas de la medicina Social al suministro de servicios de salud en 12 pueblos circumpolares indigenas de Alaska. El modelo utiliza un curriculo basado en el cuidado medico para impulsar la colaboracion clinico-comunitaria y el analisis critico de retos en la prestacion de servicios de salud enfocado en cuatro areas de prioridad establecidas por los dirigentes tribales: salud materna e infantil, enfermedades cronicas, salud mental, y enfermedades infecciosas. METODOS: El programa Jornadas de medicina Social fue puesto a prueba en abril del 2017 y sera formalmente inaugurado en noviembre del 2017. Los investigadores usaran un enfoque de metodos combinados, uniendo el analisis de datos de expedientes medicos electronicos con entrevistas a participantes y datos de encuestas pre y post para investigar cambios en los patrones de practicas de proveedores relacionados a determinantes Sociales de la salud, alianzas comunitarias e intersectoriales, y revisiones a politicas y protocolos del sistema de salud durante un ano de programacion. Encuestas pre, durante y post recolectadas antes de que comience el programa, a los seis meses, y despues de un ano de programacion serviran para evaluar el nivel de conocimiento, disposicion, y accion de los participantes para abordar determinantes Sociales de la salud. Un protocolo de evaluacion de la necesidades Sociales administrado en la clinica ambulatoria evaluara las necesidades satisfechas e insatisfechas de los pacientes, y un rango discreto de resultados sanitarios sera monitoreado usando registros de pacientes del expediente medico electronico. DISCUSION: Proponemos la hipotesis de que al traer los determinantes Sociales de la salud a la esfera de preocupacion moral de los trabajadores de salud; al subrayar la relevancia clinica y utilidad de la teoria y analisis Social; al fortalecer alianzas comunitarias que vinculen la atencion medica primaria a servicios Sociales y tribales; y al fomentar habilidades practicas entre los trabajadores de salud para incluir intervenciones Sociales y estructurales como parte del repertorio clinico de base, las Jornadas pueden contribuir a la mitigacion de los impactos de la estratificacion Social sobre la situacion sanitaria en el noroeste de Alaska. CONCLUSION: Las Jornadas de medicina Social examinan como fuerzas Sociales, historicas, y estructurales se encarnan como enfermedades y lesiones en individuos, asi como las maneras en que estas fuerzas dan forma a la eficacia medica, la experiencia de la enfermedad, y al estandar de cuidado. El modelo sirve para construir comunidades inter-profesionales de practica para el aprendizaje, la deliberacion, y la accion sobre los determinantes Sociales de la salud en el noroeste de Alaska, asi como para construir y potenciar la infraestructura compartida clinica, educativa, y de entrenamiento con colaboradores academicos para expandir el alcance del programa y reducir las desigualdades de salud. Palabras clave: medicina Social, indigena de Alaska, disparidades de salud, determinantes Sociales de la salud, equidad en salud, estratificacion Social, salud tribal Abstract Background: The stratification of America’s disease burden along Social, economic, and racial lines suggests the need for forms of medical education and practice that link interdisciplinary analysis of the impacts of Social inequities to practical Social and structural intervention as part of the essential purview of clinical care. This reading of the project of Social Medicine—to wed health care delivery to a pragmatic and operationalized equity agenda—is particularly relevant to tribal health systems, where patient populations bear a disparate burden of injury and disease, where Social and historical forces play a large role in the generation and maintenance of these health disparities, and where Social and economic forces constrain the availability, accessibility, and efficacy of health care. Objectives: This paper describes the conceptual framework and educational materials from a Social Medicine grand rounds program in an Alaskan arctic tribal health system, aimed at building clinical, organizational, and community capacity to address Social determinants of health. Led by the Maniilaq Association Division of Social Medicine with partners at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Social Medicine grand rounds bring together hospital and village clinic-based care teams, Social and tribal service workers, and community members to study and apply Social Medicine perspectives to health care delivery across 12 circumpolar Alaska Native villages. The model utilizes a case-based curriculum to drive clinical-community collaboration and critical analysis of health care delivery challenges focused on four priority areas established by tribal leadership: maternal and child health, chronic disease, mental health, and infectious disease. Methods: The Social Medicine grand rounds program was piloted in April 2017 and will be formally launched in November 2017. Researchers will utilize a mixed methods approach, pairing analysis of electronic health record data with participant interviews and pre-post survey data to investigate changes in provider practice patterns relating to Social determinants of health, community and cross-sector partnerships, and revisions to health system policies and protocols over one year of programming. Pre-mid-post surveys collected before the program begins, at the six-month mark, and after a year of programming will assess participants’ knowledge, readiness, and action to address Social determinants of health. A Social needs assessment protocol administered in the outpatient clinic will evaluate patients’ met and unmet needs, and a discrete range of health outcomes will be tracked using patient registries in the electronic health record. Discussion: We hypothesize that by maneuvering Social determinants of health into the sphere of moral concern of health workers; by underscoring the clinical relevance and utility of Social theory and analysis; by strengthening community partnerships linking primary care to Social and tribal services; and by building a practical skill set among health workers to include Social and structural interventions as part of the core clinical repertoire, grand rounds may contribute to the mitigation of the impacts of Social stratification on health outcomes in Northwest Alaska. Conclusion: Social Medicine grand rounds examine how Social, historical, and structural forces are embodied as illness and injury in individuals, as well as how these forces shape medical efficacy, illness experience, and standard of care. The model serves to build inter-professional communities of practice for learning, deliberation, and action on Social determinants of health in Northwest Alaska, and to build and leverage shared clinical, education, and training infrastructure with academic partners to expand the reach of the program and reduce health inequities. Keywords: Social Medicine, Alaska Native, health disparities, Social determinants of health, health equity, Social stratification, tribal health.
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all health is global health all Medicine is Social Medicine integrating the Social sciences into the preclinical curriculum
Academic Medicine, 2016Co-Authors: Jennifer Kasper, Jeremy A Greene, Paul Farmer, David S JonesAbstract:As physicians work to achieve optimal health outcomes for their patients, they often struggle to address the issues that arise outside the clinic. Social, economic, and political factors influence patients' burden of disease, access to treatment, and health outcomes. This challenge has motivated recent calls for increased attention to the Social determinants of health. At the same time, advocates have called for increased attention to global health. Each year, more U.S. medical students participate in global health experiences. Yet, the global health training that is available varies widely. The discipline of Social Medicine, which attends to the Social determinants of disease, Social meanings of disease, and Social responses to disease, offers a solution to both challenges. The analyses and techniques of Social Medicine provide an invaluable toolkit for providing health care in the United States and abroad.In 2007, Harvard Medical School implemented a new course, required for all first-year students, that teaches Social Medicine in a way that integrates global health. In this article, the authors argue for the importance of including Social Medicine and global health in the preclinical curriculum; describe Harvard Medical School's innovative, integrated approach to teaching these disciplines, which can be used at other medical schools; and explore the barriers that educators may face in implementing such a curriculum, including resistance from students. Such a course can equip medical students with the knowledge and tools that they will need to address complex health problems in the United States and abroad.
Arthur Kleinman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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covid 19 requires a Social Medicine response
Frontiers in Sociology, 2020Co-Authors: Lucas Trout, Arthur KleinmanAbstract:Covid-19 is an inherently Social disease, with exposure, illness, care, and outcomes stratified along familiar Social, economic, and racial lines. However, interventions from public health and clinical Medicine have focused primarily on the scale-up of technical and biomedical solutions that fail to address the Social contexts driving its distribution and burden. Fused with a moment of reckoning with racial injustice and economic inequality in the U.S. and across the world, these disparities charge policy leaders to develop, study, and share a response grounded in Social Medicine. As a yardstick for formulating, evaluating, and implementing health policy and care delivery, Social Medicine recommends at least three things: integrating health, Social, and economic responses; bringing care to the points of greatest need; and focusing on broad equity-driven reforms in the pandemic's wake. With these tools, Covid-19 presents us with an opportunity to address the inequities that the disease highlights, exploits, and may otherwise entrench.
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the necessity of Social Medicine in medical education
Academic Medicine, 2015Co-Authors: Michael Westerhaus, Amy Finnegan, Mona Haidar, Arthur Kleinman, Joia S Mukherjee, Paul FarmerAbstract:Research and clinical experience reliably and repeatedly demonstrate that the determinants of health are most accurately conceptualized as bioSocial phenomena, in which health and disease emerge through the interaction between biology and the Social environment. Increased appreciation of bioSocial approaches have already driven change in premedical education and focused attention on population health in current U.S. health care reform. Medical education, however, places primary emphasis on bioMedicine and often fails to emphasize and educate students and trainees about the Social forces that shape disease and illness patterns. The authors of this Commentary argue that medical education requires a comprehensive transformation to incorporate rigorous bioSocial training to ensure that all future health professionals are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to practice Social Medicine. Three distinct models for accomplishing such transformation are presented: SocMed's monthlong, elective courses in Northern Uganda and Haiti; Harvard Medical School's semester-long, required Social Medicine course; and the Lebanese American University's curricular integration of Social Medicine throughout its entire four-year curriculum. Successful implementation of Social Medicine training requires the institutionalization of bioSocial curricula; the utilization of innovative, engaging pedagogies; and the involvement of health professions students from broad demographic backgrounds and with all career interests. The achievement of such transformational and necessary change to medical education will prepare future health practitioners working in all settings to respond more proactively and comprehensively to the health needs of all populations.