Today’s New York Times has an
article on the importance of social science knowledge for medical students. http://nyti.ms/HLd5E2
The medical school admissions
test will now have several questions related to the social and behavioral
sciences, apparently especially anthropology, psychology, and sociology. More
premed students are predicted to take introductory courses in these areas. This
new emphasis on the social and behavioral sciences recognizes that health and
medicine are not just scientific issues and that sociology and the other social
sciences are very relevant for attempts to improve the health our nation and
the practice of medicine.
As a sociologist, I’ve long
thought that health professionals would benefit from an understanding of some
of the emphases of sociology: racial, gender, and social class inequality;
social interaction; social institutions; and so forth. I’ve also thought that
issues of health and health care reflect and illustrate these emphases, and
that students who take sociology classes benefit sociologically from learning
about health and health care issues.
The introduction to sociology
text I’ve authored for Flat World Knowledge has a chapter on health and health
care, as does the social problems text I am now finishing up for Flat World. These
are among my favorite chapters in these books because issues of poverty, racial
and ethnic inequality, and gender inequality manifest themselves so often and
so clearly in the study of health and health care. By reading about health and
health care in these books, then, students will learn a lot about larger
problems in American society. And by knowing more about these problems, they
will be in a better position someday to perhaps help to resolve them.
