The Involvement of the Behavioral Sciences in American Medicine: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

This paper discusses the medical profession's underlying motivations in initiating recent changes in medical education in the United States. The first part briefly examines the transition from a holistic to a scientific theory and practice in American medicine. The second part of the paper analyzes and interprets the increasing incorporation of behavioral scientists into medical education in recent decades. A review of the debate on reforms in medical education, appearing in The Journal of the American Medical Association since the 1940s, indicates that the primary function of these behavioral scientists is to provide future physicians with techniques for managing problems in the physician-patient relationship. The concluding interpretation is that behavioral science expertise is actually used to strengthen and legitimize the traditional status of the medical profession in the existing structure of health care delivery.