Module 1

Question 1

Chaos Narratives

Answer 1

And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened…

Question 2

Disease

Answer 2

What you have when you leave the doctor’s office

Question 3

Health (from an interpretive medical anthropology perspective)

Answer 3

“A set of common-sense ideas which we have all been learning since childhood about our bodily processes, the way in which we monitor them, and the standard rhetorical devices which we use to describe them.”

Kleinman (1988)

Question 4

Curing

Answer 4

The removal of disease

Question 5

Restitution Narratives

Answer 5

Yesterday I was well, today I am sick, but tomorrow I will be perfectly well again.

Biomedicine is the hero

Question 6

Suffering

Answer 6

“A state of distress brought about by an actual or perceived threat to the integrity or continued existence of the whole person ie. body/self which includes cultural and social dimensions”

Cassell (2004)

Question 7

Healing

Answer 7

If we can find some way to regain our voice, this is the basis of the mastery of suffering

Question 8

Humanities

Answer 8

“Educating the emotions as well as the intellect, enhanc[ing] compassion as well as critical thinking, … encourag[ing] active engagement in public and/or professional life” Cole, Carlin & Carson (2015:2)

Question 9

Health (from a political economy perspective)

Answer 9

“Access to and control over the basic material and nonmaterial resources that sustain and promote life at a high level of satisfaction”

Baer, Singer and Susser (1997)

Question 10

Quest Narratives

Answer 10

When the experience of making sense of illness is resolved by helping others or undertaking a personally significant challenge.

Question 11

Medical Humanities

Answer 11

“A series of intersections, exchanges and entanglements between the biomedical sciences, the arts, the humanities and the social sciences”

Whitehead & Woods (2016:1)

Question 12

Health (WHO definition)

Answer 12

“A state of complete physical mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”

Question 13

What are some key points of critical thinking?

Answer 13

• reasonable, reflective thinking
• deciding what to believe or do
• aware of weakness in certain models
• requires some distance from the problem to appreciate its complexity

Question 14

Language of distress

Answer 14

The way we communicate to others that we are sick, and ask for their acknowledgement.

Question 15

Healthcare pluralism

Answer 15

The idea that there are three sectors of healthcare to seek help from: professional, folk and lay

Question 16

Pilgrimage

Answer 16

The process of going to a far place to understand a familiar place better.

Question 17

Intersectionality (in health)

Answer 17

Describes how the overlap of two or more biological attributes can enhance/ diminish opportunities or life chances. They contribute to the way others percieve your worth.

Question 18

Structural suffering

Answer 18

The systemic, predictable inequality of access to wellbeing resources.

Question 19

What determines and reinforces biopower, and where is it present?

Answer 19

Social systems, our beliefs and ‘good health’ practices.

Question 20

On which levels does biopower operate?

Answer 20

Individual- through technologies of the self (self-surveillance)
Population- through research and biomedicine experts

Question 21

Describe biomedical epistemology.

Answer 21

• derived from a philosophy of mind body dualism
• reductive view of the body (a part tells us about the whole)
• uses numerical data, physical observation and structural deviance to explain disease
• formal, impersonal healthcare
• professionals keep competent and up to date

Question 22

Phenomenological epistemology of health.

Answer 22

The (patient’s) experience of living in the sick body.

Question 23

What three things does Person Centred Care PCC include?

Answer 23

Narrative, partnership and careful documentation.