Mixing Anthropology with Medicine: Various Implications of Cultural Influence on Medical Practice
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medical studies
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published 06/06/2008
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SummaryThe implicit belief of medical anthropologists is that culture does have an impact on the structure, realities, and perceptions of medical practice. Medicine is distinctive to specific cultures, and regardless of whether or not such individualized practices fall within the realm of Western biomedicine, they must be respected as valid and authoritative systems for the given society. As an anthropologist, it is much easier to separate our traditions of medical practice from those being studied or in question. Yet from a medical practitioner’s perspective, the practices that their knowledge is founded in and driven by often create conflict when applied to a highly individualized population of differing beliefs. The benefits of incorporating anthropological perspectives in medical practice are potentially immense, and in Chapters 8, 9, and 10, Lindenbaum and Lock offer three arguments that support this relationship.
Table of Contents
- In Chapter 8, Horacio Fabrega delineates a critical medical anthropological review of biomedical psychiatric practices
- Since Fabrega offers a medical anthropological perspective, he incorporates some overarching themes of culture and medicine
- Chapter 9 presents an argument about the use of a double standard when evaluating Western and non-Western medical treatments
- In Chapter 10, Ronald Frankenberg delineates the benefits of relating anthropology to the field of epidemiology
- All three chapters offered concrete and valid arguments regarding the role of anthropology in medical practice
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