Social Justice And Medical Practice

How do we understand and respond to the pressing health problems of modern society? Conventional practice focuses on the assessment and clinical treatment of immediate health issues presented by individual patients. In contrast, social medicine advocates an equal focus on the assessment and social treatment of underlying social conditions, such as environmental factors, structural violence, and social injustice. Social Justice and Medical Practice examines the practice of social medicine through extensive life history interviews with a physician practicing the approach in marginalized communities. It presents a case example of social medicine in action, demonstrating how such a practice can be successfully pursued within the context of the existing structure of twenty-first-century medicine. In examining the experience of a physician on the frontlines of reforming health care, the book critiques the restrictive nature of the dominant clinical model of medicine and argues for a radically expanded focus for modern-day medical practice. Social Justice and Medical Practice is a timely intervention at a time when even advanced health care systems are facing multiple crises. Lucidly written, it presents a striking alternative and is important reading for students and practitioners of medicine and anthropology, as well as policy makers.

Social work theory and ethics places social justice at its core and recognises that many clients from oppressed and marginalized communities frequently suffer greater forms and degrees of physical and mental illness. However, social justice work has all too often been conceptualized as a macro intervention, separate and distinct from clinical practice. This practical text is designed to help social workers intervene around the impact of socio-political factors with their clients and integrate social justice into their clinical work. Based on past radical traditions, it introduces and applies a liberation health framework which merges clinical and macro work into a singular, unified way of working with individuals, families, and communities. Opening with a chapter on the theory and historical roots of liberation social work practice, each subsequent chapter goes on to look at a particular population group or individual case study, including: LGBT communities Mental health illness Violence Addiction Working with ethnic minorities Health Written by a team of experienced lecturers and practitioners, Social Justice in Clinical Practice provides a clear, focussed, practice-oriented model of clinical social work for both social work practitioners and students.

Advancing Social Justice Through Clinical Practice is a comprehensive volume that bridges the gap between the psychosocial realities of clients and the dominant clinical practices. The book's contributors include social workers, family therapists, clinical psychologists, community psychologists, and counseling psychologists. Its accessible writing style makes it valuable to students studying the field.

This book critically analyses how politics and power affect the ways that medicine is taught and learned. Challenging society’s historic reluctance to connect the realm of politics to the realm of medicine, Medical Education, Politics and Social Justice: The Contradiction Cure emphasizes the need for medical students to engage with social justice issues, including global health crises resulting from the climate emergency, and the health implications of widening social inequality. Arguing for an increased focus on community-based learning, rather than acute care, this innovative text maps the territory of medicine’s contradictory engagement with politics as a springboard for creative curriculum design. It demonstrates why the socially disempowered - such as political and climate refugees, the homeless, or those without health insurance should be primary subjects of attention for medical students, while exploring how political engagement can be refined, sharp, cultivated and creative, engaging imagination and demanding innovation Exploring how the medical humanities can promote engagement with politics to improve medical education, this book is a ground-breaking and inspiring contribution. It is an essential read for all those with a focus on medical education and medical humanities, as well as medical and healthcare students with an interest in the social determinants of health.

"Social (In)Justice and Mental Health introduces readers to the concept of social justice and role that social injustice plays in the identification, diagnosis, and management of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Unfair and unjust policies and practices, bolstered by deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of some groups, has led to a small number of people having tremendous advantages, freedoms, and opportunities, while a growing number are denied those liberties and rights. The book provides a framework for thinking about why these inequities exist and persist and provides clinicians with a road map to address these inequalities as they relate to racism, the criminal justice system, and other systems and diagnoses. Social (In)Justice and Mental Health addresses the context in which mental health care is delivered, strategies for raising consciousness in the mental health profession, and ways to improve treatment while redressing injustice"--

Praise for Public Health and Social Justice "This compilation unifies ostensibly distant corners of our broad discipline under the common pursuit of health as an achievable, non-negotiable human right. It goes beyond analysis to impassioned suggestions for moving closer to the vision of health equity." —Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, Kolokotrones University Professor and chair, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; co-founder, Partners In Health "This superb book is the best work yet concerning the relationships between public health and social justice." —Howard Waitzkin, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico "This book gives public health professionals, researchers and advocates the essential knowledge they need to capture the energy that social justice brings to our enterprise." —Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, Distinguished Professor of Public Health, the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College "The breadth of topics selected provides a strong overview of social justice in medicine and public health for readers new to the topic." —William Wiist, DHSc, MPH, MS, senior scientist and head, Office of Health and Society Studies, Interdisciplinary Health Policy Institute, Northern Arizona University "This book is a tremendous contribution to the literature of social justice and public health." —Catherine Thomasson, MD, executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility "This book will serve as an essential reference for students, teachers and practitioners in the health and human services who are committed to social responsibility." —Shafik Dharamsi, PhD, faculty of medicine, University of British Columbia

Because medicine can preserve life, restore health and maintain the body's functions, it is widely acknowledged as a basic good that just societies should provide for their members. Yet, there is wide disagreement over the scope and content of what to provide, to whom, how, when, and why. In this unique and comprehensive volume, some of the best-known philosophers, physicians, legal scholars, political scientists, and economists writing on the subject discuss what social justice in medicine should be. Their contributions deepen our understanding of the theoretical and practical issues that run through the contemporary debate. The forty-two chapters in this reorganized second edition of Medicine and Social Justice update and expand upon the thirty-four chapters of the 2002 first edition. Eighteen chapters from the original volume are revised to address policy changes and challenging issues that have emerged in the intervening decade. Twenty-two of the chapters in this edition are entirely new. The treatment of foundational theory and conceptual issues related to access to health care and rationing medical resources have been expanded to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced discussion of the background concepts that underlie distributive justice debates, with global perspectives on health and well-being added. New additions to the section on health care justice for specific populations include chapters on health care for the chronically ill, soldiers, prisoners, the severely cognitively disabled, and the LGBT population. The section devoted to dilemmas and priorities addresses an array of topics that have recently become especially pressing because of new technologies or altered policies. New chapters address questions of justice related to genetics, medical malpractice, research on human subjects, pandemic and disaster planning, newborn screening, and justice for the brain dead and those with profound neurological injury. Reviews of the first edition: "This compilation brings a variety of perspectives, national settings, and disciplinary backgrounds to the topic and provides a unique survey of theoretical and applied thinking about the connections between health care and social justice... Physicians and others interested in this field will find this book an engaging introduction to the theoretical and practical challenges pertaining to social justice and health care." New England Journal of Medicine "Although much work in bioethics has focused on clinical encounters, there has been a current of discussion about questions of social justice for decades-at least since the allocation of access to dialysis was widely understood in the 1960s to be a matter of justice, not of medical judgment. This volume will facilitate heightened awareness and deeper discussion of such issues." JAMA "Impressively, the editors have chosen an array of essays that explore the philosophical and bioethical foundations of distributive justice; review the current practice of rationing and patients' access to care in a number of different countries; highlight the issues raised by various special needs groups; and then wrestle with some dilemmas in assessing priorities in distributing healthcare... This book is an excellent resource. " Doody's

This book brings together the latest thinking in social justice and health policy and seeks to integrate a capabilities perspective with the demands of health and economic policies that impact on health