Translating social science concepts into medical education: a model and a curriculum.

Most serious efforts aimed at linking social and behavioral sciences knowledge to medical practice have included "models" which integrate social and behavioral science concepts. We argue that such an integration is intellectually problematic due to an important analytic distinction between "social" sciences and "psychological" sciences. If the social explanation of illness is to become useful in medical education, a distinctly social model is necessary for conceptual clarity and for guidance of which is useful for explicating the link between social science knowledge and medical practice and for organizing the knowledge for teaching in medical schools.