Module 1: Medical Humanities Flashcards

1
Q

What is WHO’s definition of health

A

A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

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2
Q

What are medical humanities

A

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

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3
Q

What is a political economy approach definition of health

A

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

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4
Q

What is a medical anthropology definition of health

A

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

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5
Q

What are restitution narratives

A

Yesterday I was healthy, today I am sick, but tomorrow I will be well again (biomedicine emerges heroic and triumphant, metaphysical elements of illness do not fit this narrative)

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6
Q

What are metaphysical elements of illness

A

Changes to your self, sense of identity and purpose

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7
Q

What are chaos narratives

A

People have no distance from their illness, are consumed by it. “And then, and then, and then” We have a moral duty to honour these stories by listening when they are recounted. All treatments pointless. Whirlpool

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8
Q

Who is the author of the wounded healers (4 narratives)

A

Arthur Frank

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9
Q

What is a testimonial story

A

Press you to witness and and believe what they tell you while excluding information that contradicts the key story line.

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10
Q

What is a quest story

A

Departure date, initiation period and return, like the stages of a journey. Endurance and forbearance by the storyteller are key. By experiencing suffering the hero encounters the reason for their trials.

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11
Q

Chaos, quest and restitution stories are also testimonial stories. What part of reality does chaos leave out?

A

Possibility of hope and acceptance

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12
Q

Chaos, quest and restitution stories are also testimonial stories. What part of reality does quest leave out?

A

Diminish greatly the suffering involved

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13
Q

Chaos, quest and restitution stories are also testimonial stories. What part of reality does restitution leave out?

A

Metaphysical aspects of illness (why did this happen to me?)

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14
Q

What is illness vs disease (Cassell 1976)

A

Illness is what we feel when we go to visit a doctor and disease is what we have after we have been to the doctor’s office

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15
Q

What is illness (Helman 2007)

A

A type of misfortune which brings on a subjective experience of physical and emotional changes which are generally confirmed by other people

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16
Q

What is illness (Kleinman 1989)

A

To become temporarily demoralised with one’s world

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17
Q

What is the language of distress (Helman 2007)

A

A bridge between the subjective experiences of impaired wellbeing and social acknowledgement of them

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18
Q

What is healthcare pluralism

A

The many ways you can treat illness

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19
Q

What are the three sectors of healthcare

A

Lay, folk and professional (professional is the tiny tip of the iceberg, other two below the surface of our attention most of the time)

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20
Q

What is the hierarchy of resort

A

The people people go to to seek relief from illness, professionals usually neither first nor last

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21
Q

What are contested illnesses

A

Show the multidirectional flow of interpretive work in doing health and illness, gets political (e.g you consider yourself ill but few agree you have a disease)

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22
Q

What is disease (Canguilhem 1991)

A

“A departure from the norm established by biomedical authority”
But normal is undefined, everyone’s normal is different

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23
Q

What is pilgrimage (Turner)

A

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

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24
Q

Why is distant sometimes better? (travelling for treatment)

A

Neighbours are of great social support but can also make the client vulnerable. Also cheaper treatment, kinder older case style of treatment

25
Q

What does the metaphor of journey and pilgrimage aim to describe

A

The impact of illness in our lives. Also helps us conceptualise political, emotional and cognitive distances we must cover to understand another’s experience

26
Q

What is the primary experience of suffering (Younger 1995)

A

Alienation in 3 phases (alienated from yourself, alienated from others, makes strangers out of those you know well)

27
Q

What is suffering (Cassell 2004)

A

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

28
Q

Why are pain and suffering not the same

A

When pain has a purpose then it is not suffering. When pain serves no useful purpose and appears to be unending, then we suffer, become demoralised and seek relief

29
Q

How can we master suffering, and what are the three phases (Younger 1995)

A

If we can find some way to regain our voice: mute suffering, expressive suffering (narrative) and finding an authentic voice

30
Q

How is the chaos narrative associated with healing

A

More associated with suffering

31
Q

How are the quest and witness narratives associated with healing

A

Help us move forward

32
Q

How is the restitution narrative associated with healing

A

Helps with curing

33
Q

What is healing (Jaye 1998)

A

Relates to notions of transformation, restoration, resolution and being made whole

34
Q

What is the difference between healing and curing

A

Healing is self confirming. More than curing: room for new you

35
Q

What is healing in biomedicine

A

Resolving emotional difficulties. E.g a placebo can instil hope and improve psychological healing

36
Q

What are the three stages of healing (Kleinman)

A

Labelling the sickness with a culturally appropriate category, ritually manipulated to culturally transform it, new potent cultural symbol of “well” that is applied independently of behavioural or social change

37
Q

How does healing work (Helman 2000)

A

Through language, ritual and the manipulation of powerful cultural symbols

38
Q

What is psychotherapy

A

Works by helping us to create stories or myths which make our demoralisation less painful. Healing emerges from the depth of the meanings we create for our suffering through these culturally specific stories we learn to tell

39
Q

How did Liggins’ participants describe healing

A

Making sound or whole, journeying both forward and backward, hard work and transformation, connection, finding meaning, transcending suffering, blooming and contentment, exploration, gaining wisdom

40
Q

What is intersectionality

A

A tool to theorise identity. Identities depend on our psychological makeup and the context in which we have developed and matured. Intersectionality is the enhancement and dimunition of our life chances according to our biographical attributes and how they can overlap, cancel and reinforce each other. Another way to entangle health

41
Q

When considering the economic disadvantages of poverty, what definition of health may be the most appropriate

A

Marxist or political economy of health definition: “access to and control over the basic material and nonmaterial resources that sustain and promote life at a high level of satisfaction”

42
Q

What is structural suffering

A

A systematic, widespread, predictable inequality of access to those processes that enhance and sustain wellbeing

43
Q

What is an example of structural suffering

A

The disaster of Bhopal: poor people affected by the actions of the rich. Second injustice: UCC then sold off its most profitable elements and declared itself bankrupt, case held in India to protect from prosecution under US laws

44
Q

What is medicalisation

A

When medicine encroaches onto aspects of life that were historically not recognised as being subject to the oversight and control of biomedical specialists

45
Q

What is the social model of disability

A

Society as disabling: the manner in which circulating norms about what is appropriate/normal restrict the life chances of people who demonstrate some perfectly ordinary form of difference from this norm

46
Q

What is the predicament model of disability

A

A more complex understanding of disability noting that is has medical and material components to it as well as a disabling social world aspect. Also about identity, we must resolve ourselves as best we can (predicaments can become part of our identity)

47
Q

What is social power

A

The capacity to influence another or a social group enacted through wealth, violence and intimidation, status advantages, authority, responsibility, influence, creative control, etc

48
Q

What does rhetoric mean

A

Persuasive power

48
Q

What is biopower

A

Used by critical researchers in health studies. Theory of how social power operates in urbanised societies by persuasive and unnoticed taken for granted knowledge and practices. Ideals promoted by authoritative sources and against which people measure and monitor their lives to try to create a self in accordance with these desirable goals

49
Q

What is optimisation (Gaudet)

A

Health becomes an altar before which we perform our piety. Can always be better

50
Q

What are gendered identities

A

Gender stereotypes e.g resulting in people thinking it would be more diminishing to break the stereotype than get treatment for their illness (macho masculinity, feminine caring for others more than themselves)

51
Q

What are biomedical cultural perspectives

A

Derived from a philosophy of mind body dualism with a reductive view of the body, universalising, values neutrality. Disease considered without social context

52
Q

What are the three dominant epistemiological views on departures from health

A

Biomedical (disease), phenomenological (illness) and social (sickness)

53
Q

What is a phenomenological model of unhealth

A

The patient’s experience of illness

54
Q

What is a biomedical model of unhealth

A

The biomedical worker’s understanding of disease

55
Q

What is person centred care

A

Includes patient’s context and involves the use of narrative, partnership and careful documentation. Based on the understanding that people are capable of expressing themselves and willing to cooperate with professionals. Sometimes need to develop a relationship and then expression can occur. Must not homogenise

56
Q

What assumptions does person centred care rely on

A

People are capable of expressing themselves, willing to cooperate, wish to be involved in all aspects of decision making and present with the same capacity to do this at each encounter

57
Q

What is health entanglement

A

Complicated or compromising relationship or situation. Situation or relationship that you are involved in and is difficult to escape. Health professionals need hyper-specialisation and holism

58
Q

What is epistemiology

A

The study of how we come to know what we know about the world and the basis we use
for determining the validity of that knowledge.