Decolonising Medicine: What role will sociologists play?
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
In response to calls for medicine and healthcare to be decolonised, this paper considers the role of sociologists in this endeavour. In the UK, Sociology has been part of the medical curriculum since the 1960s, and sociologists in medical education position themselves as critical friends, ensuring medicine meets the needs of diverse populations. However, efforts to decolonise medicine have been led by medical students and clinicians, focussing on biomedical knowledge and practice, such as racialised prescribing for blood pressure, the whiteness of dermatology, and increased mortality rates of Black women in pregnancy and childbirth. Meanwhile, work to decolonise Sociology has underexplored its relationship to health or medicine, and Medical Sociology has little to no publications addressing this subject. This paper addresses this lacuna by considering sociologists’ role in training tomorrow’s doctors, and our (in)activity in Medicine’s decolonisation. It draws on the authors’ experiences of teaching sociology to medical students and contributing to a national social sciences core curriculum for medical educators. We argue that as medical sociologists we must not confuse our critical dispositions as ones that stand outside of colonialism. The work of decolonising medical sociology lies ahead. Without interrogating the history and contemporary practices of sociology as taught to medical students, we will not be able to support or participate in the decolonisation of Medicine.
Title | BSA Annual Conference 2025: Social Transformations |
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Date | 23/04/25 → 25/06/25 |
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Website | |
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Location | University of Manchester |
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City | Manchester |
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Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
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Degree of recognition | International event |
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