Medical Anthropology - Miscellaneous Quotes

Medical anthropology is a helpful tool for Christian healthcare providers serving cross-culturally. It is also key to exegesis of the of the Bible as it pertains to ancient understanding of illness and healing. I'd like to share some quotes and resources from articles, books, and websites related to medical anthropology.

"One of the aims of medical anthropology is to disentangle the closely interwoven natural-environmental, human-biological, and socio-cultural threads forming the behavioral and conceptual network of human responses to the experience of illness."(Pilch, 1995)

"It is common for people around the world to assume that their medical system can actually cure people while other systems cannot. This universal ethnocentric view leads some doctors and nurses trained in modern scientific medical practices to reject off-hand the knowledge and methodology of folk curers, especially if they involve a personalistic explanation for illness. However, all medical systems have both successes and failures in curing sick people." (O'Neil, 2007)

"The kind of placebo that works is highly culture related. Not many people in the Western World would accept a magical charm as an effective cure for a cold, but we do accept a doctor's visit and medications that simply reduce the symptoms but do not actually cure the disease." (O'Neil, 2007)

"One of the biggest differences between the methods used by a curandero or other traditional folk curer and those used by modern medical doctors is the amount of time that is spent in diagnosis and treatment. Native American folk curers traditionally spent many hours with each patient, showing great concern. In contrast, a typical routine visit to a modern doctor's office involves a long, often frustrating, wait and a very short interview by the doctor. In the case of minor illnesses, the doctor usually makes a diagnosis in a few brief minutes and quickly moves on to giving treatment advice and writing a prescription for medication. The entire interaction with the doctor often takes less than five minutes and then the doctor must rush off to another patient because he or she has a very large patient load. The speed and matter of fact character of this medical encounter leaves many patients feeling unsatisfied with the experience and doubtful about the doctor's concern for them personally. Another major difference between traditional folk curers and modern medical doctors is in the fact that the former are likely to treat their patient in an environment that is familiar, comfortable, and non-threatening to the patient. Typically, it is the patient's home with family and friends present to provide emotional support. In contrast, modern medical doctors most often treat their patients in an environment that is alien and sometimes intimidating to their patients--e.g., the doctor's office or a hospital."
(O'Neil, 2007) 

"Moreover, the remedies prescribed by physicians may fail to cure disease, despite effective pharmacologic action, when patients fail to follow through on the medical regimen because they do not understand (or do not agree with) the physicians’ stated rationale for their actions."
(Kleinman et al, 1978)

"Biomedicine has increasingly banished the illness experience as a legitimate object of clinical concern. Carried to its extreme, this orientation, so successful in generating technological interventions, leads to a veterinary practice of medicine."
(Kleinman et al, 1978) 

"Folk practitioners usually treat illness effectively, but do not systematically recognize and treat disease. They may at times affect disease, either directly (when efficacious folk remedies like rauwolfia exist) or via treatment of illness. Only modern health professionals are potentially capable of treating both disease and illness."
(Kleinman et al, 1978) 

"The ebb and ultimate dissolution of women's influence on medicine and science were pivotal in directing healing away from the classic womanly virtues of nurturance, intuition, empathy, and emotionality - all seen as threats and impediments to progress of the new scientific order.
(Achterberg, 2002)  

“Legitimizing the patient’s illness experience – authorizing that experience, auditing it empathetically – is the key task in the care of the chronically ill”
(Kleinman, 2007) 

“The underlying problem is that most Christian healthcare practitioners don’t have a way to do anything other than offer the rationale that immunizations are “just science.” We in the West, and particularly those of us trained in the sciences, do not require God or the gospel as part of the explanation for why our science is effective. God disappeared from our explanatory schemes for science over two hundred years ago. Our professional training has equipped us to be messengers of a secular explanation for illness, health, and healing.”
(Myers, 2015) 

"[In traditional Indian villages] there are village quacks who heal people with folk remedies. Their knowledge is limited so they must ask questions about the illness: Where does it hurt and for how long has the pain been felt? Have they been with someone sick? What have they eaten? For the same reason they charge low fees and give no guarantees. People have to pay for the medicines before receiving them. It should not surprise us that Western doctors are often equated at the beginning with the quacks."
(Hiebert, 1982)

Bibliography

Achterberg, J. (2002). Imagery in healing: shamanism and modern medicine. Boston: Shambhala.

Hiebert, P. G. (1982). The Flaw of the Excluded Middle. Missiology, 10(1), 35-47.

Kleinman, A., Eisenberg, L., & Good, B. (1978, February). Culture, illness, and care: clinical lessons from anthropologic and cross-cultural research. Retrieved August 25, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/626456

Kleinman, A. (2007). The illness narratives: suffering, healing, and the human condition. New York: Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group.

Myers, B. L., Dufault-Hunter, E. E., & Voss, I. (2015). Health, healing, and shalom: frontiers and challenges for Christian health missions. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.

O'Neil, D. (2007, October 02). Medical Anthropology: Curing Practices. Retrieved August 25, 2017, from http://anthro.palomar.edu/medical/med_2.htm

Pilch, J. J. (1995). Insights and models from medical anthropology for understanding the healing activity of the Historical Jesus. HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 51(2). doi:10.4102/hts.v51i2.1385