Health care professionals: a model for teaching the components of society-culture-personality in the delivery of care.

In recent years, the behavioral sciences have contributed tremendously tot he education of future physicians, dentists, nurses, and other health care professionals. With the inclusion of the behavioral sciences component in the National Board Examination (1972), many medical schools have revised their curricula to include sociology in the training of the future physician. However, the tremendous shortage of qualified social scientists made it difficult to meet the needs of medical schools and health programs in the country.In view of this problem, this paper will present a single conceptual model that can be used as an organizational device for teaching some basic social science concepts to health care students and to assist them in the comprehension of the impact of society-culture-personality (SCP) on the health care institution as a whole. Uses of this model have been presented elsewhere.(1,2)