The impact and integration of behavioural sciences in the education of health care professionals

Abstract

Health, defined as physical, mental and social well-being, should be adequately conceptualized in organic as well as non-organic terms, thus implying a criticism of some training programmes which ought to recognize the dire need to integrate the socio-behavioural sciences--geography, social anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science and economics--in the education of health care professionals. The two components of this education, medicine and health care and the socio-behavioural sciences, should prepare the professional adequately to practice the science of medicine and the art of the profession in varying socio-cultural contexts of co-existing health care systems. This paper argues that it is only those institutions which integrate the socio-behavioural sciences in their programme of health care education that are on the path of progress by keeping scientific pace with our understanding of the structural realities of contemporary societies.