Medical anthropology

[enigma85]

I've done a search on this topic and haven't found what exactly what I am looking for.

What programs offer an MD/PhD or MD/MA in medical anthropology (either formally or when there is an applicant with a particular interest)?

So far I have found UCSF, Columbia, Case Western, Harvard, and WashU.

Also, does anyone know what it takes to get in these programs? I am an anthropology major and I'm interested in AIDS/HIV research, focusing more on cultural aspects than public health or epidemiology. I have a strong biology research background, but no anthropology research or particularly strong relationships with any medical anthropologists. Thanks!

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[pennybridge]

and why do you want to be a doctor? Sounds like an expensive and useless degree based on what you want to do.

 

[enigma85]

I would like to split my career between medicine and anthropology. There are several physicians who have both a clinical practice and do field work in anthropology. For exampe, a few MD/PhDs in Anthropology that I know of:

Paul Farmer, Harvard & Partners in Health: "Farmer's work draws primarily on active clinical practice (he is an attending physician in infectious diseases and chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston, and medical director of a charity hospital, the Clinique Bon Sauveur, in rural Haiti) and focuses on diseases that disproportionately afflict the poor [....] Dr. Farmer has pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for AIDS and tuberculosis (including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis)."

Brad Stoner, WashU & Chief of STD Services, St. Louis: "My research addresses issues at the interface of anthropology, public health, and medicine. I am particularly concerned with the analysis of political and economic underpinnings of health and illness in cross-cultural perspective. Most recently my work has focused on social and behavioral aspects of sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Other areas of interest include the study of health care access and decisionmaking, biomedicine as a cultural system, alternative/heterodox medical systems, culture-bound syndromes, and the role of anthropology in clinical and public health research. I have conducted field research in Peru and in urban North America."

There are at least 3 other Harvard faculty with MD/PhDs in anthropology, so I am definitely looking into their program, but I'm sure you have to be an exceptional candidate to be admitted. Obviously it is an interesting field to students and researchers if there are these MD/PhD programs at Yale, Harvard, WashU, UCSF, Columbia, and Case Western. My question was simply if there are others that I don't know about.

 

[pennybridge]

check out Case Western, they have an MD/MA program also

 

[BetterNBest]

Hello,

I was actually really interested in doing either and MD/PhD in medical anthropology or social epidemiology: I settled on doing my PhD in social epidemiology, however I may have some helpful insight.

Michigan's anthro program is off the hook, and I know that they've made some efforts to accomodate med anthro MD/ PhD's in the past.

The two best MD/PhD programs after doing my research are Harvard and WashU. Dr. Stoner from WashU is the man, and he seems very eager to have MD/PhD students. Harvard is, well, Harvard.

Not so much if you're interested in a MD/MA, but definitely if you want an MD/PhD, you NEED to get some med anthro/ social epidemiology research experience. The bio research you've done is not going to cut it because the two are VERY different beasts. Anthro and epi research involve a lot more interprative, literature crunching work. It's about synthesizing ideas to make new, testable ideas: much more of an intellectual excercise than I assume one does in a biomed lab. I recommend you email some cultural anthro profs and ask if you can get in on their research: you'll get a much better idea of what you're getting into

Lastly, to the general public, med anthro and social epi are growing fields that are playing an increasingly important role in medicine today. If you like research (the intellectual part of it), people, and solving important problems, and don't want to spend you're life in a lab, you should really consider them.

OP best of luck to you, and PM me if you have any questions/concerns...