Medical Anthropology Special Lecture (2015)

Latest update: 10 June, 2015

[2014] | [2013]

1. Overview

For international health, especially for cooperation and development, understanding diversified cultural background is crucially important. Any aid without understanding tends to become a kind of cultural invasion, and it may result in tragic outcomes for the local people. This lecture thus outlines the basic concepts and methodologies of medical anthropology, followed by several examples.

2. Plan

The lecture is done in the first semester on Thursday, 14:40-16:10 at GSICS 206.

Since 2014, debates on the several topics has been held, where the basic information is given and the sides are assigned in the end of previous week.

Overview: history of the medical anthropology concept (9 April, handout)
What is health? Applied medical anthropology and health care (16 April, handout)
Disease, illness, sickness and the sick role (23 April, handout)
Sick role and patient role in detail (30 April, handout)
Cultural competence in health care (7 May, handout)
Cultural systems models (14 May, handout)
Debate on "Witchcraft and local health care in PNG" (21 May, handout for medical systems and medical pluralism/syncretism).
Presentations on how to deal with health problems from the perspectives of medical systems models of Kleinman and medical pluralism/syncretism; Handout for transcultural psychiatry and indigenous psychology (28 May, handout)
Debates on mass-screening under Japanese cultural normalcy / Handout for traditional herbal medicine (4 June, handout)
Medical-ecological approaches to health (11 June, handout)
Political economy and critical medical anthropology (18 June, handout)
Psychobiological dynamics of health (25 June, handout)
[No new concept is given.] (2 July, debate theme for next week: Doctor assisted dying is acceptable or not?: See, BMJ commentary, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 1330: 94-100, 2014)
Syamanic paradigm of ethnomedicine (9 July, handout)
[Debate] (16 July)

3. Evaluation

Based on presentation, discussion, and report.

4. Reference

Winkelman M (2009) Culture and Health: Applying Medical Anthropology. Jossey-Bass, John-Wiley and Sons.

Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar, ed. (2014) Pros and Cons: A Debater's Handbook. 19th ed., Routledge.

5. Office hour

For the students of the Graduate School of Health Sciences, Tuesday, 18:00-18:30, at Myodani campus E707. For the students of GSICS, Thusday, 16:40-18:00 at Frontier Building Room 717. Taking appointment is recommended.

6. Message to the students

Done in English.

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