At the center of the COVID-19 pandemic lies a ubiquitous feature of medicine. Medicine is permeated with ignorance. Seizing this moment to assess the current state of medical sociology, this article articulates a sociology of medical ignorance. We join insights from earlier medical sociological scholarship on uncertainty with emerging research in the sociology of ignorance to help make sense of the omnipresent but sometimes invisible dynamics related to the unknowns in medicine. Then we examine two streams of inquiry with a focus on uncertainty and ignorance—(1) research on the interconnections between technology, medical authority, and ignorance and (2) research on lay expertise within the context of ever-present uncertainties. For decades, and to good effect, medical sociologists have asked, “What does medicine know, and what are the consequences of such knowing?” Going forward, we encourage medical sociologists to examine the unknown in medicine and the consequences of not knowing.

COVID-19 大流行的核心是医学的一个普遍特征。医学充满了无知。抓住这个时刻来评估医学社会学的现状，本文阐述了医学无知的社会学。我们将早期医学社会学关于不确定性的见解与无知社会学的新兴研究相结合，以帮助理解与医学中的未知数相关的无处不在但有时不可见的动态。然后，我们研究了两个侧重于不确定性和无知的探究流——（1）研究技术、医学权威和无知之间的相互联系；（2）在始终存在的不确定性背景下研究非专业知识。几十年来，医学社会学家一直在问，“医学知道什么？而这样知道的后果是什么？” 展望未来，我们鼓励医学社会学家研究医学中的未知以及不知道的后果。