I would have to say that before taking this class I knew some medicine and its uses in practical application, however I did not know the extent in which medicine was defined and the information presented with regards to globalization was extremely interesting. It did not occur to me that there were so many disciplines covered with respect to medicine and how those disciplines can greatly affect each other. Medicine seems to be an ever growing field that advances each day fused with the advancement of technology, however this has been proven to have advantages and disadvantages. There are some applications of medicine that I feel could be manipulated to completely change cultures in devastating ways, and yet in contrast, the next medical breakthrough could be right around the corner as well.
The intersection of medicine and culture is a representation of how diverse our world is and how each culture utilizes the techniques, skills, and application of these medicines to manipulate our health whether its for better or for worse. The knowledge of cultural context relating to medicine before I took this class was negligible as I did not realize the amount of influence a culture can have with medicine. Clearly, industrial development plays a key role in the success and prevalence of medicine and biomedicine especially.
I found the ethnomedical approach to be quite useful as you can identify diseases and understand them through cultural contexts that show a significant knowledge of the source of some diseases and how the culture surrounding them can be affected. This is interesting to me because it shows some of the most widely used systems of healing as well as primitive aspects. I also found the experimental approach to be unique as I never really thought to narrate an illness and the effects that it would have in cultural context as well as other disciplines associated with different cultures. Through the video "Placebo:Cracking the Code," I was very impressed by how well the placebo actually worked. It was interesting to say the least that our recollection of healing is also tuned into how we approach the treatments done to us, even when our affected area might not even be appropriately treated (2).
The film "Pill Poppers" was a great film that shows how different cultures use medicine to sustain a disease free lifestyle, even sometimes when a disease has not come into existence in an area yet. It displayed a sense of reliance that we have on medicine to take any small pain or health ailment away and be in control of our health from an industrialized development (1).
If I were to describe what I thought the value of medical anthropology, it would be value in our ability to understand how influential our culture can be to a whole community as well as an individual person. That social interactions create vast complex networks through which healing finds its roots in the people and culture it is enveloped into.
Citations:
1."Pill Poppers." YouTube video, 58:59. Posted by "BBCHORIZON." January 11, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRkbRrv6gHk
2."Placebo:Cracking the Code." YouTube video, 52:38. Posted by "Nicholas Humphrey." November 5, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvbQnMvhQFw
1."Pill Poppers." YouTube video, 58:59. Posted by "BBCHORIZON." January 11, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRkbRrv6gHk
2."Placebo:Cracking the Code." YouTube video, 52:38. Posted by "Nicholas Humphrey." November 5, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvbQnMvhQFw