Strategies for teaching the sociological imagination to medical students: the role of embodiment

Abstract

The teaching and practice of medicine has traditionally been founded upon a monistic, modernist and positivistic knowledge base that is diametrically opposed to the epistemological pluralism that characterises contemporary health and medical sociology. As such, the benefits of incorporating a sociological approach to research and teaching into medical faculties within Australian Universities has, in the past, been treated with some scepticism. The Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University has broken with tradition and taken a step forward in 2002. Embedded within the Faculty’s new five-year MBBS curriculum is a sociology unit entitled: Health, knowledge and society. The unit employs aspects of C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination to teach 1st year medical students the importance of analysing the social aspects of health and illness in medical practice. The unit contains a teaching methodology comprising preparatory tutorials that lead to a role-playing scenario (hypothetical). A key aspect of the teaching method is the utilisation of the ‘embodied’ stakeholder who briefs the students on their lived experiences within the health-care system. This paper outlines the effects of this aspect of the medical curriculum in terms of its effectiveness in operationalising the teaching of the sociological imagination to 1st year medical students.