In an undergraduate class I’m tutoring, we recently discussed the definition of health, and one of the first suggestions from the class emphasized that health encompasses not only physical health, but also mental and emotional wellbeing.
Read MoreProviding quality end-of-life: the stakeholder perspective
Since moving to Scotland, I have become increasingly interested in participative policymaking processes. In contrast to more traditional ‘top-down’ methods, wherein elected representatives develop and implement policy in largely insular fashion, participative policymaking offers relevant stakeholders a ‘seat at the table’.
Read More‘The one who hides their sickness will not get medicine’ (Swahili Proverb): The need for ethnography to understand Neglected Zoonotic Diseases
From outer space this world appears borderless, a vast expanse of land populated by organisms ranging from the microscopic to the gigantic. Sharing the same space, it is easy to imagine how humans, animals, and pathogens are intertwined in a perpetual cycle of life and death.
Read MoreExploring the potential for NICE guidance commentary to improve how recommendations are used in healthcare
During December 2014, I experienced my own geeky pre-Christmas anticipation as I eagerly awaited the publication of the new NICE guidance on antenatal and postnatal mental health. For those of you who aren’t afflicted with my UK maternity care and clinical guidance obsession, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publishes recommendations that influence UK healthcare practice and policy, amongst other things.
Read MoreTales from the Field (which is further from home than I thought): Medical Experiences and Assumption from the US to the UK.
As a US-raised Ph.D. anthropologist studying families affected by dementia in London, I am working on coming to terms with cultural differences in understanding healthcare between the UK and US.
Read MoreRisk Medicine – Who is at Risk…and who is not?
How do we determine who is at risk of disease? How beneficial is it to our health, to be assessed as ‘at risk’? The parameters of what puts an individual at risk seems, to me, to be constantly evolving. It is an exhausting task to even attempt to keep up with the identification of new risk factors. But is this knowledge of risk beneficial for our health?
Read MoreA greeting, a handshake, and a wave.
As a researcher in psychology, my days are often spent meeting strangers who have agreed to take part in my research. Mostly it’s an enjoyable experience, and you can meet the most unusual and eccentric individuals. And yet, despite the uniqueness of each encounter, it always begins and ends the same way: A greeting, a handshake, and a wave.
Read More‘God Works through Doctors’: Perceptions of healing within a Baptist Church
Problematizing the distinction drawn between the spheres of science and religion, this fieldwork report considers portrayals of physical healing within a Baptist church and assesses the extent to which the categories of faith healing and biomedicine are considered mutually exclusive within the church context.
Read MoreA ‘magic pill’ to treat them all!
The pharmaceuticalisation of health supports the assumption that a ‘magic pill’ can effectively treat or control any social, behavioural or bodily conditions. I explore the contribution of patients, doctors and pharmaceutical companies to such pharmaceuticalisation of health, while keeping in mind that other actors such as governments and professional institutions are also involved.
Read MoreDiagnoses for Sale
In this piece, Lillian critiques a recent NHS England policy that has led to doctors getting paid extra for diagnosing dementia in their patients. The author articulates important insights in her assessment, addressing both healthcare and social policy implications, and finishes by proposing a potential way forward.
Read MoreThe cost of denying NHS staff fair pay
Energy coursed through my body during the opening address at the Royal College of Midwives Conference in November. Warwick criticised the UK government for its decision to deny NHS midwives the 1% pay increase that had been recommended for NHS staff, while increasing pay for MPs by 10%
Read MoreNo Bob Geldof, I Won’t Give You My F***ing Money
This week saw the latest incarnation of the Bob Geldof charity juggernaut that is Band Aid, with the 1984 single ’Do They Know It’s Christmas’ being updated and re-recorded by a new generation of musicians and pop stars. And Bono.
Read MoreWould an Anthropology of Ebola (help) find its ultimate cure?
The Ebola River has meandered through the Democratic Republic of Congo for eons, yet only recently has its name burst beyond its banks to flood the world. When the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976 in a village close to the River’s banks it received little global attention or funding to find a treatment or cure.
Read MoreThe Isolation of Cancer
Can illness only be defined as the human experience of symptoms and suffering? I personally think there is more to illness, more to the experience, and more positivity which can be taken from it.
Read MoreCriticising the Criticism of the Ice Bucket Challenge
Like it or loath it, the ice bucket challenge was a massive success for Motor Neuron Disease (MND) associations. As of September, the challenge had raised over £6million for the UK MND Association and a cool $100million for the American ALS Association.
Read MoreSpaces and Technosociology: I.T. Ain’t Necessarily So
Having spent the past several months writing up a Master’s dissertation on Actor-Network Theory and its potential for expanding and developing the field of cybercrime research, I have had the eternal social science student experience of watching as an exciting, newly devoured work of social theory worms its way throughout my consciousness.
Read MoreAlzheimer's and Our Sense of Loss: A Very Personal Affair
The post I write today is personal. And it is about an experience that is becoming increasingly personal for a growing number of people and families, globally. This post concerns the growing prevalence of Alzheimer's among our elderly.
Read MoreContemplating Involuntary Caesarean Sections For Mentally Ill Women
Socially included or constrained to work? Poverty and welfare policies in Britain.
Compared to previous ideas about material poverty, which dominated the poverty discourse up until the 1980s, and which are still prevalent in developing countries, the concept of social inclusion has been viewed as more appealing in describing poverty in contemporary post-industrial societies.
Read MoreThe Legalization of Medical Aid in Dying in Quebec: A Doctor’s Perspective
On June 5th 2014, Quebec became the first province in Canada to legalize medical aid in dying, defined as ‘an act that involves deliberately causing the death of another person to put an end to that person’s suffering’. This phrasing carefully avoids the negative stigma associated with the term euthanasia, which literally means ‘good death.’
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