"A medical science conceived of in radically human terms"
Beyond the jargon and hype of Silicon Valley "innovation", beyond the slogans of "we believe in science", and before political partisanship, this is the most basic foundation of public health as a science of human flourishing: that it be oriented towards the common good in a way that is radically human. Those words, taken from an article published in the early 1970s by the medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, encapsulate my vision for public health and social medicine.
Being radically human from its motives to its methods and on through its messaging holds the potential to transform the discipline of public health from a surveillance bureaucracy, constantly at the mercy of political winds and chasing the latest rise of one or another condition, to a public office that is visionary, visible, and rooted in local values. One that some might call a more "muscular" medicine, as a practice and a human reality.
Being radically human from its motives to its methods and on through its messaging holds the potential to transform the discipline of public health from a surveillance bureaucracy, constantly at the mercy of political winds and chasing the latest rise of one or another condition, to a public office that is visionary, visible, and rooted in local values. One that some might call a more "muscular" medicine, as a practice and a human reality.
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What does it mean to be a medical science? The science of medicine must begin with the question of what constitutes ‘medicine’. To quote Kleinman (1973) again, “Little is known about what personal and social standards of healing efficacy are in modern society, yet these should be crucial concerns for modern medicine.”
The scientific aspect then entails reproducibility, prediction, technological application, translation into practice, and scaling. The scientific process is itself susceptible to the study of its practices, social constraints and support, and translation into public messaging. |
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Materially, human terms mean both treating the material needs of food, water, shelter and safety in everyday life and in the face of natural disasters and material environment, but also the human substance (e.g. HeLa cells, organ donation, autopsy and cadaver labs).
Morally human terms entail engaging seriously with questions about the good life, social relations, the human experience of suffering, politics, and reciprocal communication, recognising the human propensity for both evil and good in collective and individual action.
For more about my moral vision for public health,
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My vision for public health is rooted in its humanity, not its technocracy. It is an office for the people and by the people of the land, that they and their children may flourish within surroundings both physical and social and achieve a fully realised, integrated human life.
"Medicine [is] a socio-cultural system, as a practice and a human reality".