Medicine Disoriented
Once a week, I get to play doctor. Setting aside the endless anki cards and slide decks familiar to all medical students in their preclinical training, I turn…
Tag: medical anthropology
Evidence and Experience at the Climate-Health Nexus
By Annikki Herranen-Tabibi, Harvard Medical School, United States On a sweltering afternoon in the congested Expo City of Dubai, I entered the COP28 Visitor Center to collect my…
Waves of Well-being: Surfing at the Shaka Surf Club in Kodi Bengre, India
Surfing’s roots are in long-standing cultures in the Pacific Islands, South America, and West Africa. After wave-riding was banned by European Missionaries who deemed it leisurely and “sav…
Bed-Time Storytelling
Bedtime stories are stories narrated by adults to children before they fall asleep. As an essential parenting skill, the storytelling scene is infused with love and trust. These…
Care Without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists Are Changing Medicine – review
In Care Without Pathology: How Trans- Health Activists Are Changing Medicine, Christoph Hanssmann explores the evolution of trans therapeutics and health activism through ethnographic fieldwork conduc…
Funeral for an Embryo
On a freezing February morning, I pulled my rental car into the small parking lot behind a sprawling Minnesota church. I had flown halfway across the country to…
How to Imagine the Unknown: Choosing an Arm Prosthesis
When amputation happens, it is an un-ignorable event. After the surgery, the person learns how to be an amputee, they learn to conceptualize their altered body. This work…
Staring Contest
It’s 3 in the morning. I’m sitting at the end of the hallway of the boomerang-shaped intensive care unit (ICU) where I work, looking into the darkness beyond…
The Wild Pantry
Plants and Their Stories Finally, it’s time. As a team we have arrived in Cambodia—a geographer and an anthropologist embarking on a journey that we have joyfully planned…
Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge – review
In Arc of Interference: Medical Anthropology for Worlds on Edge, João Biehl and Vincanne Adams assemble reflections on the role of anthropology in understanding healthcare in today’s world of…
Why positive thinking won’t end loneliness
NOEMI CASSIN House of Lords London SW1A 0PW Dear Lady Barran, I am writing to you to discuss your latest Campaign to End Loneliness report, titled “The Psychology…
Neglect of vaginal health in US health education
CAROLINE MOORE Dear Dr. Miguel Cardona, RE: Neglect of vaginal health in US health education I am writing as someone who was educated in the US through high…
Menus without calorie information should be available in all restaurants in the UK
NINA DYNE Neil O’Brien MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Primary Care and Public Health), House of Commons,LondonSW1A 0AA Menus without calorie information should b…
An open letter on virtual wards
HELEN ROBERTSON Deliver To: Amanda Pritchard,NHS Chief Executive Officer10 South Colonnade Canary Wharf, London, E14 4PU Dear Amanda Pritchard, In 2022, your team announced the expansion …
Seeing Women Rough Sleepers
FILIS LIU To: C/O Xerox Unit 4, 191 Pasadena Close, Hayes, UB3 3NQ. Dear Mayor Sadiq Khan, I am writing to draw your attention to the alarming rise…
Rethinking Indigenous Suicide in Canada and Giving Land Back
HUGH KNAPP Canadian Minister of Healthjean-yves.duclos@parl.gc.ca Re: Suicide in our indigenous communities Dear Mr. Jean-Yves Duclos, &nbs…
The missing yet critical discussion in the Hong Kong primary healthcare development: On achieving effective chronic disease management
EMILY LIU 26 Jun 2023 Dr PANG Fei-chau Commissioner for Primary Healthcare, Health Bureau Dear Dr Pang, I want to begin this letter…
Improving healthcare for people with learning disabilities
LILY ROSE Amanda PritchardCEO of NHS EnglandPO Box 16738RedditchB97 9PT Dear Amanda Pritchard,CEO of NHS England, striving for improving health nationally and ensuring high quality care for all…
Response to the Illegal Migration Bill
WILL FAY 26th of June 2023 Suella Braverman House of CommonsLondonSW1A 0AA Dear Suella Braverman, I am writing as a medical and anthropology student to advocate for policy…
BAME maternal health disparities
PIRADAB VIJAYARATNAM Rt Hon Steve Barclay MPSecretary of State for Health and Social Care 39 Victoria Street LondonSW1H 0EU 20th March 2023 Dear Mr Barclay, RE: BAME maternal health…
Applying anthropological techniques to achieve your strategic goals for North West Cancer Research.
CHRISTINA PHILPOTT Dear Alistair Richards, My name is Christina, I’m studying MSc Biosocial Medical Anthropology at University College London. My discipline examines the many different factors …
Improving access to hospice care in the UK
RAPHAEL ARDANI The Rt Hon Steve Barclay MP …
Between Pain and Relief: Morphine’s Ambiguities in India
The root of the word morphine is Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Neil Gaiman’s contemporary reimagining of the character in his magnum opus Sandman likewise thrusts upon…
An open letter to the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza.
TARA MAYHEW Dear Dame Rachel, The Children’s Commissioner’s Big Ask Survey (2021) gave voice to children and revealed the state of their nation. Children said they want good…