ANTH 335 - Advanced Cross-Cultural Medicine

Credits: 5
Across cultures, humans have diverse understandings, beliefs, and practices related to illness, health, and healthcare. Through the lens of Medical Anthropology, this class examines the range of human variations (such as race, gender, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, religious identity, and ethnic groups) that impact the understanding of health, illness, and treatment. The course uses ethnographic, informant and popular sources to explore health beliefs, care systems and healer/patient relationships cross-culturally.

Enrollment Requirement: Eligible for ENGL& 101 or instructor consent.

Satisfies Requirement: Social Science
Course Outcomes:
Students who successfully complete this class will be able to:

Describe the impact of culture on health and illness beliefs and behavior.
Identify different types of healers and healer-patient relationships.
Analyze the influences of biological, cultural, and social factors on health and access to healthcare, with particular focus given to variation in race, gender, ability, and socio-economic status.
Describe global patterns that affect epidemiology.
Identify anthropological contributions to health care interventions, research, and education.

Program Outcomes

Define the anthropological concept of cultural relativism.
Identify the holistic perspective.

College-wide Outcomes

Critical Thinking - Critical thinking finds expression in all disciplines and everyday life. It is characterized by an ability to reflect upon thinking patterns, including the role of emotions on thoughts, and to rigorously assess the quality of thought through its work products. Critical thinkers routinely evaluate thinking processes and alter them, as necessary, to facilitate an improvement in their thinking and potentially foster certain dispositions or intellectual traits over time.
Diversity and Equity - In order to advance equity and social justice, students will be able to examine their own and others’ identities, behaviors, and/or cultural perspectives as they connect to power, privilege, and/or resistance.