Medical activists as agents of change

Even when physicians focus their work on the care of individual patients, they often see patterns behind the disease and suffering that prompt people to seek medical care. Diseases in humans reflect social, economic, political, and environmental conditions. Weary of managing this status quo, some physicians work to change the world around them.1 Still others work to change the healthcare system to make it more inclusive of physicians from diverse backgrounds or more accessible to previously marginalised communities around the world.Their efforts have taken many forms, such as pioneering new types of care, conducting research to guide policy, or public advocacy and government service. Medical activists work at the interface of medicine and society, often recognising the two as inextricable, in their efforts to bring about change.It’s not possible to know which physician did this first, and any effort to identify a few exemplars will inevitably neglect others worthy of…
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