Elaboration of reflective essays as an analytical tool in the context of Medical Sociology

Abstract

Medical Sociology is a subject that provides a complementary vision to the training of the medical professional in the face of the sociocultural challenges that cross the health-disease duality. In Chile, there is an important tradition of incorporating social currents in clinical careers such as medicine. In the case of the Medicine career of the Universidad de Atacama, its graduate profile expresses the training from the biopsychosocial approach, with critical, humanistic and social thinking, aspects in which the subject of Medical Sociology contributes.
In this sense, a widely used tool in humanistic subjects is the writing of reflective essays, which allow students to apply sociological concepts to their own medical
discipline. Here we present the experience of reflective essay writing in the context of a predominantly clinical career.