Medical Education, Politics and Social Justice

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 innovationExploring 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.

Alan Bleakley 0000-0001-5206-7010 is Life Emeritus Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities at Plymouth Peninsula School of Medicine, Faculty of Health. He is an internationally acclaimed figure in the fields of medical education and medical humanities, with a strong profile of research grants, keynote conference talks, peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and books. He has an academic background in zoology, psychology, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and education, and has been instrumental in developing the medical humanities in medical education internationally including organizing international conferences. He is past President of the Association for Medical Humanities and founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Educators. Alan is also a widely published poet with four collections, and a keen, longstanding surfer. He lives in the far west of Cornwall - where granite coast meets the, often wild, Atlantic - with his wife Sue who is a visual artist.