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 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 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 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.’
Read More