Sociological Perspectives on Medical Education

Abstract

The inaugural editorial of the British Journal of Medical Education (now simply ‘Medical Education’) claimed ‘medical education’ as “one of the subjects of medicine” (1966, p. 1) and, therefore, a legitimate medical specialism. Whilst Norman (2011) identifies three distinct generations of medical education researchers it has, for the most part, been conducted by those involved with medical education itself and with a view to improving and developing the pedagogic practices that form the basis of their concern. Such research can be distinguished from the sociology of medical education. Whilst these two endeavours can, and perhaps ideally should, closely inform one another they are often sharply distinct. This is reflected in the fact that whilst medical education was present at the inauguration of medical sociology, in the shape of Becker et al’s Boys in White (1961) and Merton’s et al’s Student Physician (1957), little was done to build on this foundation until recently (Jefferys and Elston 1989). Nevertheless the field of medical education research has grown steadily in the intervening decades.