Lauren D Olsen
Biographic Data
| ID | 255887 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lauren D Olsen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lauren D |
| FAMILY NAME | Olsen |
| SIGNATURE | OLSEN L D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Temple University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6012-867X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 70 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Associations between Student Social Position, Training, and Plans to Care for Underserved Populations over the Course of Medical School
How medical students learn about the social
The social experience of stress as premedical students in the United States
Curricular Injustice
Lauren D. Olsen argues that the way medical students encounter humanities and social sciences material in practice has served to reinforce the status quo by teaching them to individualize systemic problems.
Special issue introduction
Patient narratives of hope in stem cell technologies
The scholarship on patient hope in biomedical technologies describes two narratives of hope: the biomedical and the individual. The biomedical narrative represents patients' beliefs that the institution of science will eventually produce treatment for their disease, whereas the individual narrative represents patients' beliefs that they can alter their prognosis through affective and behavioral modifications. The distinct analytical categories of…
Implementing a Social Determinants of Health Curriculum in Undergraduate Medical Education
Disciplining empathy
Citing their students’ low levels of empathy, medical educators have scrambled to implement curricula with the hopes of buffering against the corrosive effects of biomedical and clinical experiences in medical school. The assumption undergirding these studies by social scientists and medical educators alike is that immersion in biomedical education and clinical experience erodes students’ empathic capacities, and that exposure to humanities and s…
The Resurgence of Medical Education in Sociology
From 1940 to 1980, studies of medical education were foundational to sociology, but attention shifted away from medical training in the late 1980s. Recently, there has been a marked return to this once pivotal topic, reflecting new questions and stakes. This article traces this resurgence by reviewing recent substantive research trends and setting the agenda for future research. We summarize four current research foci that reflect and critically …
We'd Rather Be Relevant than Theoretically Accurate
At the turn of the 21st century, one of the ways in which the U.S. medical profession attempted to address the rampant health and healthcare disparities facing their patient populations was to pay more attention to a patient's culture. Proving to be easier said than done, the operationalization of the social scientific concept of culture for clinical practice has been fraught with implementation difficulties-from clinician buy-in to stereotyping.…
Self-Interested and Altruistic Motivations in Volunteering for Clinical Trials
Empirical studies have found that altruism and self-interest are the two primary motivations for enrollment in clinical trials. Some studies have shown that in some cases these two motivations are contingent upon each other, which complicates our understanding of motivation. In this study, we interviewed 27 people with Parkinson's disease about their willingness to enroll in a hypothetical clinical trial. Through inductive, grounded theory analys…
The Conscripted Curriculum and the Reproduction of Racial Inequalities in Contemporary U.S. Medical Education
In their attempt to address racial disparities in the provision of healthcare, the U.S. medical profession has reproduced racial inequalities of their own. In this article, I draw upon interview data with medical educators and students to detail how medical educators routinely offload the instruction on the social underpinnings and consequences of race onto students, particularly students of color. I develop the concept of the conscripted curricu…
Policy Design and the Politics of City Revenue
Residents of the United States rely on municipal governments to deliver important public goods but are often reluctant to pay for those goods. Can tax policy design affect voters’ propensity to say yes to local taxes? We answer this question by analyzing a new database of 929 tax increases of heterogeneous design that were proposed to California voters from 1996 to 2010. We find that voters’ willingness to raise a municipal tax varies with the ch…
It’s on the MCAT for a Reason”
Biomedical socialization and premed culture have been shown to promote reductionist and depersonalized approaches to understanding human difference, a serious problem in contemporary health care. In 2015, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) launched a new version of its Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that included material from sociology, providing sociology departments an unprecedented opportunity to instruct premed stude…
The Resurgence of Medical Education in Sociology
From 1940 to 1980, studies of medical education were foundational to sociology, but attention shifted away from medical training in the late 1980s. Recently, there has been a marked return to this once pivotal topic, reflecting new questions and stakes. This article traces this resurgence by reviewing recent substantive research trends and setting the agenda for future research. We summarize four current research foci that reflect and critically …
The Conscripted Curriculum and the Reproduction of Racial Inequalities in Contemporary U.S. Medical Education
In their attempt to address racial disparities in the provision of healthcare, the U.S. medical profession has reproduced racial inequalities of their own. In this article, I draw upon interview data with medical educators and students to detail how medical educators routinely offload the instruction on the social underpinnings and consequences of race onto students, particularly students of color. I develop the concept of the conscripted curricu…
It’s on the MCAT for a Reason”
Biomedical socialization and premed culture have been shown to promote reductionist and depersonalized approaches to understanding human difference, a serious problem in contemporary health care. In 2015, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) launched a new version of its Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that included material from sociology, providing sociology departments an unprecedented opportunity to instruct premed stude…
Policy Design and the Politics of City Revenue
Residents of the United States rely on municipal governments to deliver important public goods but are often reluctant to pay for those goods. Can tax policy design affect voters’ propensity to say yes to local taxes? We answer this question by analyzing a new database of 929 tax increases of heterogeneous design that were proposed to California voters from 1996 to 2010. We find that voters’ willingness to raise a municipal tax varies with the ch…
We'd Rather Be Relevant than Theoretically Accurate
At the turn of the 21st century, one of the ways in which the U.S. medical profession attempted to address the rampant health and healthcare disparities facing their patient populations was to pay more attention to a patient's culture. Proving to be easier said than done, the operationalization of the social scientific concept of culture for clinical practice has been fraught with implementation difficulties-from clinician buy-in to stereotyping.…
Self-Interested and Altruistic Motivations in Volunteering for Clinical Trials
Empirical studies have found that altruism and self-interest are the two primary motivations for enrollment in clinical trials. Some studies have shown that in some cases these two motivations are contingent upon each other, which complicates our understanding of motivation. In this study, we interviewed 27 people with Parkinson's disease about their willingness to enroll in a hypothetical clinical trial. Through inductive, grounded theory analys…
Patient narratives of hope in stem cell technologies
The scholarship on patient hope in biomedical technologies describes two narratives of hope: the biomedical and the individual. The biomedical narrative represents patients' beliefs that the institution of science will eventually produce treatment for their disease, whereas the individual narrative represents patients' beliefs that they can alter their prognosis through affective and behavioral modifications. The distinct analytical categories of…
Disciplining empathy
Citing their students’ low levels of empathy, medical educators have scrambled to implement curricula with the hopes of buffering against the corrosive effects of biomedical and clinical experiences in medical school. The assumption undergirding these studies by social scientists and medical educators alike is that immersion in biomedical education and clinical experience erodes students’ empathic capacities, and that exposure to humanities and s…
It’s on the MCAT for a Reason”
Biomedical socialization and premed culture have been shown to promote reductionist and depersonalized approaches to understanding human difference, a serious problem in contemporary health care. In 2015, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) launched a new version of its Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) that included material from sociology, providing sociology departments an unprecedented opportunity to instruct premed stude…
The Conscripted Curriculum and the Reproduction of Racial Inequalities in Contemporary U.S. Medical Education
In their attempt to address racial disparities in the provision of healthcare, the U.S. medical profession has reproduced racial inequalities of their own. In this article, I draw upon interview data with medical educators and students to detail how medical educators routinely offload the instruction on the social underpinnings and consequences of race onto students, particularly students of color. I develop the concept of the conscripted curricu…
Policy Design and the Politics of City Revenue
Residents of the United States rely on municipal governments to deliver important public goods but are often reluctant to pay for those goods. Can tax policy design affect voters’ propensity to say yes to local taxes? We answer this question by analyzing a new database of 929 tax increases of heterogeneous design that were proposed to California voters from 1996 to 2010. We find that voters’ willingness to raise a municipal tax varies with the ch…
Self-Interested and Altruistic Motivations in Volunteering for Clinical Trials
Empirical studies have found that altruism and self-interest are the two primary motivations for enrollment in clinical trials. Some studies have shown that in some cases these two motivations are contingent upon each other, which complicates our understanding of motivation. In this study, we interviewed 27 people with Parkinson's disease about their willingness to enroll in a hypothetical clinical trial. Through inductive, grounded theory analys…
The Resurgence of Medical Education in Sociology
From 1940 to 1980, studies of medical education were foundational to sociology, but attention shifted away from medical training in the late 1980s. Recently, there has been a marked return to this once pivotal topic, reflecting new questions and stakes. This article traces this resurgence by reviewing recent substantive research trends and setting the agenda for future research. We summarize four current research foci that reflect and critically …
We'd Rather Be Relevant than Theoretically Accurate
At the turn of the 21st century, one of the ways in which the U.S. medical profession attempted to address the rampant health and healthcare disparities facing their patient populations was to pay more attention to a patient's culture. Proving to be easier said than done, the operationalization of the social scientific concept of culture for clinical practice has been fraught with implementation difficulties-from clinician buy-in to stereotyping.…
Implementing a Social Determinants of Health Curriculum in Undergraduate Medical Education
Disciplining empathy
Citing their students’ low levels of empathy, medical educators have scrambled to implement curricula with the hopes of buffering against the corrosive effects of biomedical and clinical experiences in medical school. The assumption undergirding these studies by social scientists and medical educators alike is that immersion in biomedical education and clinical experience erodes students’ empathic capacities, and that exposure to humanities and s…
Patient narratives of hope in stem cell technologies
The scholarship on patient hope in biomedical technologies describes two narratives of hope: the biomedical and the individual. The biomedical narrative represents patients' beliefs that the institution of science will eventually produce treatment for their disease, whereas the individual narrative represents patients' beliefs that they can alter their prognosis through affective and behavioral modifications. The distinct analytical categories of…
Curricular Injustice
Lauren D. Olsen argues that the way medical students encounter humanities and social sciences material in practice has served to reinforce the status quo by teaching them to individualize systemic problems.
Special issue introduction
How medical students learn about the social
The social experience of stress as premedical students in the United States
Associations between Student Social Position, Training, and Plans to Care for Underserved Populations over the Course of Medical School
Sociology (10 works) · Medicine (8 works) · Innovations in Medical Education (6 works) · Pedagogy (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Diversity and Career in Medicine (5 works) · Medical Education and Admissions (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Social science (5 works)