Radical Visions of American Medicine: Politics and Activism in the History of Medicine (2022)
The alternative ways of thinking about health care delivery and medical training developed by health care activists of the 1960s and 1970s profoundly shaped American health policy. I explore three episodes that took place in this time period: a moment when medical student activists in Philadelphia demanded that the city's medical schools admit African Americans as one-third of every 1969 first-year class; tensions between feminists and gynecologists over who should have authority in women's health and whether the idea of a feminist physician was an oxymoron; and the extraordinary enthusiasm American physicians and other practitioners expressed about China's Maoist health system. These three intersectional examples highlight the words and deeds of activist insiders and underscore their reliance on activist outsiders for validation and empowerment of their demands. Finally, I argue that the history of health activism offers a powerful vehicle for examining health politics in ways that can illuminate not only the intricate bureaucratic maneuverings of politicians and administrators but also the passion, struggles, and dreams of providers and consumers.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Thesis
Halfmann, Drew T.;
(2001)
Interests in Contexts and Institutional Democracy: The Politics of Abortion Policy in Liberal Welfare States, 1950--2000
Article
Mark Gallagher;
(2017)
From asylum to action in Scotland: The emergence of the Scottish Union of Mental Patients, 1971–2
Book
Robert Baker;
(2024)
Making Modern Medical Ethics: How African Americans, Anti-Nazis, Bureaucrats, Feminists, Veterans, and Whistleblowing Moralists Created Bioethics
Essay Review
Jallicia Jolly;
(2022)
Theorizing Agency: New Directions in Research on HIV/AIDS Activism
Book
Sasha Mullally;
David Wright;
(2020)
Foreign Practices: Immigrant Doctors and the History of Canadian Medicare
Thesis
Nelson, Alondra;
(2003)
Black Power, Biomedicine, and the Politics of Knowledge
Book
Kathleen M. Crowther;
(2023)
Policing Pregnant Bodies: From Ancient Greece to Post-Roe America
Article
Cassia Roth;
(2020)
The Degenerating Sex: Female Sterilisation, Medical Authority and Racial Purity in Catholic Brazil
Book
Brier, Jennifer;
(2009)
Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis
Article
Marks, Harry M.;
(2003)
Epidemiologists Explain Pellagra: Gender, Race, and Political Economy in the Work of Edgar Sydenstricker
Article
Threat, Charissa J.;
(2012)
“The Hands That Might Save Them”: Gender, Race and the Politics of Nursing in the United States during the Second World War
Thesis
MacMillan, Kurt Thomas;
(2013)
Hormonal Bodies: Sex, Race, and Constitutional Medicine in the Iberian-American World, 1900--1950
Book
Rachel Kahn Best;
(2019)
Common Enemies: Disease Campaigns in America
Book
Rene Almeling;
(2020)
GUYnecology: The Missing Science of Men’s Reproductive Health
Book
Bell, Susan E.;
(2009)
DES Daughters: Embodied Knowledge and the Transformation of Women's Health Politics
Book
Caron, Simone M.;
(2008)
Who Chooses? American Reproductive History since 1830
Book
David Chanoff;
Louis W. Sullivan;
(2022)
We'll Fight It Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity
Book
Dan Royles;
(2020)
To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS
Book
Jenny Ellison;
(2020)
Being Fat: Women, Weight, and Feminist Activism in Canada
Article
Rachel Louise Moran;
(2021)
A Women's Health Issue?: Framing Post-Abortion Syndrome in the 1980s
Be the first to comment!