Medical Antropology Essay

Arthur Kelinman developed the explanatory model of illness which incorporates a series of questions that is unique to a patient’s illness to develop a treatment plan. This model assesses how patient illnesses are associated with the environment and the culture around them, while also “seeking the how, why, what, when, where, and what next of illness, disease, and health experience” (“Explanatory Model”). Asking the patient what is their opinion on what caused their illness and how they believe it should be treated will help identify their beliefs and help when planning an intervention.

In the first synthesis essay, examination of worldview was identified as one of the most important concepts necessary to understand and interpret medical anthropology. Worldview is the reason that there are many different types of medical systems. As explained in lecture, these include diagnosis, healing, and some form of payment to the healer. The study of these different medical systems falls under the term ethnomedicine. Singer describes ethnomedicine as the idea that all medical systems develop from “particular sociocultural systems regardless of the scale of the society.” For example our US healthcare system, based on western worldview, is a hierarchy of administrators who tell the doctors what they can and cannot do. Our devotion to the US healthcare system stems from our need to label the symptom or disease such as nasal drip and a cough can be labeled as a common cold. The worldview seen here is the need for immediate cures to avoid interrupting our busy lives. On the other hand, in “Touching the Timeless” with Billy Yellow from the Navajo tribe, there are many steps to prepare for his healing ritual such as the sweat hogan, where purification rituals are performed, in this case, before a strong spiritual ritual can be done. Thus understanding the worldview that comes with the development of medical systems is vital to understanding why the practices are being used and being able to compare these medical systems cross culturally.

This article discusses the first two test tube babies meeting each other at a fertility conference. Through this, it displays how two of the first humans produced by this technology can bond over something such as their specialized births and what "life growing up in the spotlight has been like" (Simpson). The recognition of this event as a medical breakthrough helps to portray the importance of further advancement within this technology. As time continues so does the need to keep up with the new and upcoming technologies, and this article shows the importance of furthering the technology of IVF. The online article analyzed for the resolution of this topic was a book review in Louise Brown's autobiography. The review chose to focus on analyzing the parents of the first test tube baby opposed to the birth itself. This article states the negative effects IVF has had on the world and how it coincides with religion and moral beliefs. The review is very clearly against Louise Brown and what she has to say about the advancement that was her birth. Throughout the review, the author fails to include a counter argument for their

Families around the world all have different beliefs and religions that they follow. Some move to America just so they can give their families a better life, but that doesn’t mean that they leave behind the traditions that they followed. It just makes it difficult sometimes for them adjusting to the American ways compared to how they were used too back in their country. Especially when it comes down to how people get sick and how they are treated so that they can get better. Here we discuss about the Hmong culture and how there’s a difference with how they heal people compared to how it’s done in America. Healing someone can be through medicine or any type of treatment from some kind of doctor or as the Hmong heal, they use a shaman. A shaman is a person with a

When IVF first became popular Van Blerkom says, “ My First Reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’” (qtd. in Cheng). Scientists are now going to try to create a chapter method of IVF so many more people would be able to enjoy a test tube baby that would not cost the $60,000 incubator cost ( Cheng). In her article titled, Shoebox Lab + $265= one test-tube baby, Maria Cheg writes that this new method would help over half the people who need infertility help (Cheng). While Cheng believes more IVF would be beneficial to he world (Cheg), Baird says that we will

Ruth Hubbard’s “Test-Tube Babies: Solution or Problem?” first appeared in Technology Review in 1980. Hubbard addressed her audience with an initial objective tone, revealing the built up to her credibility on the issue of in vitro fertilization. Hubbard having specialized in biochemistry of vision and women’s health enforces the sense in the reader that she is to be trusted on this topic. Hubbard spoke at a time when in vitro fertilization was still a new developing technology as oppose to now. She spoke directly to society although at a certain point in her article; she focuses on a

Within the first page of this book, Susan Martha Kahn explains how “many Israelis have enthusiastically embraced new reproductive technologies as reasonable solutions to childlessness (Kahn 2000:1),” which sets the tone for this account as a whole, presenting the idea that childlessness is a problem to be solved in Israeli culture. This idea is engrained in the culture, and a barren woman is the center of sympathy. The biblical decree to “be fruitful and multiply” has a very important role for Jewish individuals, many of whom consider reproduction as “an imperative religious duty” Kahn 2000: 3). There is an evident pressure to become a parent in this kinship system, and this pressure falls on virtually all women, regardless of marital status. Many women use New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs) in order to fulfill this duty and give into this pressure, whether explicitly or implicitly; as many women desire to follow the Bible’s commandment, some wish to evade constant questions regarding children, others simply wish to become a mother to fit into the role they picture themselves in, and taking advantage of these treatments is a last resort for some to achieve motherhood (Kahn 2000:17). However, it is important to recognize that, as explained by a rabbi, “she is not obligated to procreate… the obligation to procreate only falls on the man” (Kahn 2000:57). Despite the male obligation to reproduce, women are still socially expected to become mothers. This access to NRTs makes

In fact, Mercy Medical Center in Merced recently established a new Hmong shaman policy that invited shamans to perform nine approved ceremonies, such as “soul calling,” in the hospital (Brown, 2009). Integration of Hmong shaman policies into hospitals, and exposing shamans into western medicine, allows for the coexistence of Western and Oriental medicine, in addition to a profound respect for the patient’s choice. This paves a way for the steady integration of holistic health care, a system that strives to promote optimal health by recognizing healing as a part of the soul, and focuses on remedying the ill by analyzing a plethora of external factors outside of organs, such as behavior, social environment, the person as a whole, and social role function (Wade, 2009). Although oriental medicine can be a way of effective treatment by pulling strings from the placebo effect, there are several drawbacks in using traditional medicine. Medical disabilities that best require surgical intervention, such as the case with clubfooted Hmong refugee Kou Xiong, would be turned down by Hmong families who are deeply rooted in the animism faith, which views physical alteration of congenital deformities as a dangerous violation of spirit will (Caplan, 1995). As much as the US is advancing towards accepting other forms of medical practices into current methods of patient care, tensions between Western medicine and oriental medicine still exist. In fact, the book The Spirit Catches You, and You Fall Down captures the collision of cultures most vividly as it narrates the failure of Merced hospital doctors to recognize patient Lia and her family’s cultural beliefs by unrelentingly imposing westernized medical treatment on Lia, which ultimately created tensions between the family and the hospital (Fadiman, 1997). Such tensions, as

The first time I thought of medicine as a culture was as an undergraduate reading “The Ghost Map” (Johnson, 2006). The book followed the work of Dr. John Snow, a major figure in the field of epidemiology. Snow lived in London during the time of large scale cholera outbreaks in Europe. At the time the school of thought was that cholera was the product of “moral failings” on the part of individuals, as cholera disproportionately hit economically marginalized communities. Another prevailing theory involved the concept of “miasma”; in other words, that an element of the air was to blame for the surge in cholera. Snow realized through his visits to houses hit by cholera that poor sanitation in local water supplies was the causative

The research in both these field determines the larger patterns of complex socio-cultural dimensions on health and disability. Occupational science and medical anthropology aim to understand the

Discuss some of the anthropological challenges raised by the introduction of NRT’s (New Reproductive Technologies).

With the statistic of AIDS medicine being presently more reliable than infertility treatment (Rapp, 2006), it is clear that fertility doctors are under huge amounts of pressure. Thus, though patients are the main group of people that one considers when thinking about the emotional effects ART, it is important to note there are doctors who also use religious ideas to cope with the uncertainty of ART. 
Many fertility doctors in India display religious iconography around their clinics, and often name their clinics after the names of goddesses of fertility. Similarly to Kahn’s ethnography, the Hindu doctors and patients both understand that although they must exert their maximum effort in order for the procedure (IVF in this case) to succeed, it is essentially down to a ‘higher court of appeal’ (Bharadwaj, 2006, page 456) to decide whether the IVF treatment will be successful. 
Bharadwaj uses the example of Dr. Sachin, who, whilst being a highly accredited clinician, attributes all his success to cosmic forces. Though he recognises that ART is highly scientific, he also believes that there is a strong religious force which affects the outcome of his patient’s treatment. Dr. Sachin tells an anecdote of a woman he treated which he believed strongly contradicted Western science. Western medicine declares that if a woman’s endometrium is less than eight millimetres, birth is impossible. Yet, Dr. Sachin witnessed a woman give birth when her endometrium was just six millimetres.

IVF raises many of these difficult moral issues. If the above conceptions about the nature of ethics were correct, however, discussion of these issues would either be futile (because morality is a matter of personal choice or opinion) or superfluous (because morality is what a divine or secular authority says it is) (Walters 23). In this paper, I want to suggest that it is not only possible, but also necessary to inquire into the ethics of such practices as IVF because the fact that we can do something does not mean that we ought to do it.

(Frank H. Pierek 340). During the research, it was concluded that over 1500 of the interfiled men had become accessible to a form of Assisted Reproductive Technologies. In addition, over 60% of them, their problem of their infertility was revealed, and better treatment which was focused on their own specific situation specifically was given. Additionally, for the other percentage of men, a “rational andrological treatment” was given. Over all, the data was able to prove that different types of Assisted Reproductive Technologies can allow for people to have a better understanding of what is occurring in their bodies before going through a procedure, rather than only believing that ART could just be

Artificial reproductive technology (ART) is defined as procedures which stimulate a woman 's ovaries to produce eggs, the eggs are then removed, combined with sperm, and then returned to a woman 's body (Bell, 2016). ART is becoming more and more popular throughout that globe. This method of conceiving children gives women who may be struggling with infertility options that were not possible before the advent of such methods. ART is relevant to the sociological definition of global health because it is evidence of the fact that our world has become interdependent especially when it comes to medical technology. However with ART comes the notion of the culture of disguise and in many countries this is an integral part of artificial reproductive technology process. With that being said, sociologists should look to study and understand the culture of disguise in ART as it pertains to global health and it shapes interactions between people and the society they live in.