Clinically Applied Medical Anthropology

Objectives of the course

The aim of the course is to provide students with the necessary specialist knowledge to understand medical beliefs and practices of different patients, social groups and communities; to improve communication between health care professionals and patients; and to help design culturally appropriate interventions, health education strategies, and patient participation in health care.

Prerequisites

Not required.

Assessment methods

Written paper and examination.

Course contents

The course examines in depth the role of cultural and social factors in the origin of disease and in medical practice. It deals with both theory and practice of medical anthropology from an applied clinical standpoint. The course deals with the following topics: patients' explanatory models; body image and the interpretation of symptoms; family structures and family health; pregnancy, childbrith, fertility and infertility; death and bereavement; alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse; cross-cultural psychiatry; migration, refugees and disease; HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Recommended reading

• Barot, R. Social anthropology: ethnicity and family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy 10: 271-282, 1988
• Good, B. J. The heart of what's the matter: the semantics of illness in Iran
• Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 1: 25-58, 1977
• Hahn, R. A. Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995
• Helman, Cecil G. Culture, Health and Illness. London: Arnold, 2001
• Helman, Cecil G. The Family Culture: A useful concept for family medicine
• Family Medicine 23 (5): 376-381, 1991
• Kleinman, A. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980
• Lau, A. Transcultural issues in family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy 6: 91-112, 1984
• Nichter, M. and M. Nichter, eds. Anthropology and International Health. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 3-33, 1996