Definitely agree. I’m not a physician but I’ll relate this quote to my field, which is psychology. Similar to medicine, I believe that psychology should enter the political and social life. Politically, one of the first psychologists to take the field was a salvadorean psychologist, Ignacio Matrin-Baro. He saw the impact that politics was playing on the disparities and suffering of the Salvadorian people during their civil war. He was eventually murdered by those in government as he was teaching the people to be politically literate.
Working within UCSF for the past six years, I appreciate that I have been able to work with underserved and disenfranchised communities. Kimberley Crenshaw in her writings about intersectionality defines political and structural intersectionality. When working with lower socioeconomic status Latinx communities, I saw first-hand what Crenshaw described as structural intersectionality. We were working with one lower socioeconomic status population, but those that had documentation status were privileged compared to those that were undocumented as they were able to access resources that the undocumented population could not. When Obama care rolled out, we were able to provide psychological services to undocumented populations that were in serious need. The political sphere directly impacts what we do.
I struggle at times with the concept of social justice. I believe that psychologist should impact communities and politics, but that should not be the only way we work. At the individual level, I can positively impact an individual based upon my deep understanding of individual-level work. I struggle in that by only attending to social justice, we move away from the individual level plight that many people need and benefit from. I believe would should impact the individual, community, and politics.
A second concept that Crenshaw discusses is political intersectionality. What she means is that individuals with power and privilege within a disadvantaged community, for example a male within a Latinx community, are the individuals that get to decide which movements are important. The feminist movement, for example, is powerful in that it places women rights at the forefront, but the feminist movement is often critized as being a movement solely for white women. I believe heretofore, the problem of a scientist becoming an advocate for their movement presents itself. Often times the only movements that are deemed as important are because the individual with power and privilege within that decide upon the direction of the movement. It concerns me that not all people have the same privilege to advocate for the movement.
Our readings identified steps that can be taken to balance advocacy with objectivity. One example that stood out to me would be to gather the community to elicit their needs, pose a problem that would provide a solution to those needs, and make this data and research available for others to scrutinize.