Medicine and politics: the convergence from a Nigerian perspective

Abstract

Although medicine and politics are distinct subjects and among the oldest professions, there have been calls for medical doctors to get involved in active politics. Thus this study sought to identify and describe the relationship between medicine and politics by doing conceptual analysis of themes that are common to both disciplines. It was found that the relationship between medicine and politics has not been properly examined, especially from the Nigerian perspective. But the two professions are found to be related in the field of Social Sciences in the areas of their practitioners’ calling and levels of their operation. The paper however argued that when medical practitioners abandon their duty of care to patients and seek to acquiesce to politics it is because there is a sense of loss of the leadership influence among them in the body politics of society. It concludes by suggesting that the loss can best be retrieved from the health discipline of public health, which is the point of convergence of both professions.

Keywords: Leadership, Public health, public policy, politics, public interest