"Social Justice" Medicine
Graph of the Week
This week’s graph illustrates the number of articles indexed in PubMed that contain the phrase “social justice” (or “social injustice”) in their titles or abstracts.
Key Points
Use of the phrase “social justice” was mostly non-existent prior to 2000. Its use grew steadily over the first 10 years of the new millennium and then increased at an exponential rate starting in 2015.
In 2022, 730 articles indexed in PubMed contained the phrase “social justice” or “social injustice” in their titles or abstracts.
Bonus Commentary
PubMed is a database that indexes millions of research articles in fields such as medicine, biology, and public health. Searching for specific words or phrases in PubMed can help identify trends in biomedical research. “Social justice” is a phrase now in frequent use in academia, politics, the media, and the not-for-profit sector. “Social justice” is part of Critical Theory. It means to correct supposed unfair group power dynamics that exist in society. These unfair power dynamics are to be “dismantled” (via revolutionary means if necessary) and all societal resources are to then be redistributed to achieve “equity.” (See James Lindsay’s description of “social justice” at his New Discourses website).
The concept “social justice” started in university humanities departments, but has now entered the fields of science and medicine. A major issue with “social justice” philosophy in medicine (i.e., Woke medicine) is that it often misattributes causes of health problems. Consequently, “social justice” medicine has the potential to endanger patient safety and lead to the misallocation of funding and resources in the fields of medicine and public health.
Finally, increased use of the phrase “social justice” corresponds with trends in use of various Woke terms and phrases in research articles indexed in PubMed. See my published paper on the topic for more details, or see my interviews on Psychobabble or Dr. Joe Unplugged.
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"..lead to the misallocation of funding and resources in medicine and public health."
Unless_ the funding bodies themselves are influenced/incentivized to promote a particular agenda.
Great post, doc!
So scary; so scary.
Medicine may not have fallen yet ... but I will ask the pronouns when meeting a new doctor.
Depending on the reaction I will run or feel a little bit more at ease.