Social Medicine
Social Medicine Portal
A project developed by faculty members of the Department of Family and Social Medicine of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
The portal contains over a hundred links to websites, documents and presentations devoted to Social Medicine.
Our goal in creating this site is to link together the diverse international community of people working in social medicine and health activism.
What is social medicine?
It is possible to argue that all medicine by its very nature is social. The way we define diseases and health, the methods we use for diagnosis and treatment, how we finance health care, all these cannot help but reflect the social environment in which medicine operates.
Social medicine, however, looks at these interactions in a systematic way and seeks to understand how health, disease and social conditions are interrelated.
The most famous representative of early social medicine is Rudolf Virchow, the distinguished German pathologist who developed the theory of cellular pathology. Virchow was also a social reformer who remarked that “politics is
nothing more than medicine on a grand scale.” In the 20th century George Rosen would distill the Virchow’s principles into the following:
1. Social and economic conditions profoundly impact health, disease and the practice of medicine.
2. The health of the population is a matter of social concern.
3. Society should promote health through both individual and social means.
As might be gathered from these ideas, social medicine was not simply an
academic pursuit. Its practitioners were political reformers, radicals, activists. Virchow believed that the “physician was the natural advocate for the poor.” And this defense of social justice would stamp future generations of physicians and health care workers.
http://www.socialmedicine.org/
Comment: Bookmark this one! A brief visit to this website will demonstrate to you that it serves as an invaluable portal to the field of social medicine.
PNHP supporters will appreciate the January 2005 Monthly Spotlight by Leonard Rodberg and Matthew Anderson. Not only does it describe Physicians for a National Health Program as an organization dedicated to a single-payer national health program, but it also provides numerous links to single payer resources.
Though you likely don’t have the time now, nevertheless you should click on the link above and bookmark it so that you can return to their website during your next bout of boredom. The visit will be very therapeutic.