Social Medicine represents a confluence of the concerns of medicine with the larger society. The medical profession and medical institutions have always been a integral part of American Culture, but in the late twentieth century their presence and inluence are pervasive, shaping the individual and collective lives of Americans as never before.
Social Medicine helps prepare physicians who will practice their profession with an understanding of how their actions may affect the larger society, and how they themselves are shaped by social forces. In addition, Social Medicine emphasizes the knowledge and skills necessary to promote health and prevent disease in communities.
The Department's core teaching program includes:
- Social
medicine courses for medical
students; and
- Graduate training of physicians through a Residency Program in Preventive Medicine.
In addition to medical student and post-graduate physician teaching, several department faculty members offer Social Medicine courses outside the School of Medicine. Among the departments and curricula in which our faculty regularly teach are American Studies, Anthropology, Epidemiology, Health Policy and Administration, History, Law, Political Science, Religious Studies and Sociology.
