Undoing Threads of Knowledge: Exploring Power, Activism, and Undone Science in Medical Teaching

Exploring Power, Activism, and Undone Science in Medical Teaching

Abstract

In medical training, students are often presented with an image of scientific knowledge as an inherently neutral, benevolent catalyst for societal progress and understanding. Yet, growing evidence shows the uneven distribution of research interest, prioritization, and funding, resulting in gaps of ‘undone science’ (Frickel et al. 2010). As a result, knowledge about bodies who are not male, cis, white, and abled is lacking, and medical care suffers. In this text, we reflect on our experience working with ‘undone science’ as an analytical framework with which to fill conceptual gaps in contemporary medical education, based on a joint teaching project at the Medical University of Vienna. Centering on three examples of ‘undone science’ – endometriosis, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and ‘male’ contraception – we conducted interviews with eight health activists in four countries. In this article, we discuss how bringing these voices into the classroom gave medical students an understanding of long historical continuities of health-related struggles and emphasized the socio-political responsibility of healthcare. We ultimately argue for the pedagogical potential of ‘undone science’ in medical teaching to encourage a critical analysis of knowledge construction surrounding health and illness, and a conscious shift in future healthcare workers from passive to vocal actors.