What we do is less about being right — though surely, that matters — and more about doing right by others, accompanying them in their journeys, marshaling the resources (cognitive, emotional, material) we have available to us to do so.
Category: Medical Anthropology
on justice & care
Michelle Munyikwa // Several months ago, I spent some clinical time working on a service with patients being evaluated for organ transplantation. Between the complex medical decision-making and challenging social negotiations that entail transplant evaluation, the social issues are infinitely more subjective and fraught. Everything from the substance use histories to the employment history to…
Embodying public health: Dressing the part
Madeleine Mant // The Canadian Public Health Association has identified 12 “great achievements” in public health since the early 1900s: Control of infectious disease Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke Family planning Healthier environments Healthier mothers and babies Motor-vehicle safety Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard Safer and healthier foods…
Turning Forty and a Corner: a Storyteller’s Data Analysis on an Empathic Life Lived So Far
Cover Image: Mujer by Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo 2021. Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo // OUT OF THIS WORLD Learning that I was an empath changed my life. It wasn’t that this label gave me meaning or purpose; it just simply explained “me.” As an artist, being sensitive is celebrated and somewhat necessary to create. In academia, emotions and feelings should…
What does it mean to be a triplet anyway?
Steven Rhue // What is a triplet anyway? Well . . . me. I am one of three. A sibling to a brother and a sister. We were born in the same year, on the same day, at approximately the same time, and as it would imply, we are the same age. A more technical…
a mature defense
Michelle Munyikwa // “The secret source of Humor is not joy but sorrow.” — Mark Twain, as quoted in Laughter Out of Place “You know, Michelle,” my senior resident said, in that didactic tone of voice that educators often use when they are about to drop some wisdom, “humor is a mature defense.“ We had…
“Real Doctors Treat More than One Species”: Modeling Medical Creativity
Jane Desmond, PhD // If you stroll the campus of a U.S. College of Veterinary Medicine (back when strolling was allowed in pre-pandemic times) you might spot a T-shirt with a striking message printed in bold lettering across the front: “REAL DOCTORS TREAT MORE THAN ONE SPECIES.” Debates about who is a “real” doctor, what…
Measures of success
Madeleine Mant // Tell me what the measurement is. Tell me why the measurement is important. Ask if it’s okay with me that you take this measurement. I teach Laboratory Methods in Biological Anthropology, an undergraduate course divided into three units: dietary recall and analysis, anthropometry (measurements and proportions of the human body), and accelerometry…
Acknowledged but Unheard: The Absence of Children’s Voices in Water Insecurity
Steven Rhue // Children’s voices are all but absent from research on water insecurity or the condition where access to and benefit from affordable adequate, reliable, and safe water for health and well-being is unobtainable or precarious (Jepson et al.). This body of work has been dominated by the underlying assumption that a child’s experience…
Emotions as Ethnography: The Story Doctor’s Toolbox
Cover Image: My Aunts by Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo 2021. Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo// I am always “in my feelings.” I say this unapologetically, and knowing that some Latina women are rendered in popular culture as lacking control of their emotions and impulses. The overlap between these representations and my ethnographic life does not escape me. Empathy, “my gut,” memories,…