By Spc. Richard Del Vecchio (https://www.dvidshub.net/image/117966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
About
The Cultures, Minds and Medicines certificate focuses on the difference between disease and illness, and on how culture impacts that experience. The certificate consists of a series of bi-weekly seminars and one course outside the student’s major.
Overview
The Cultures, Minds and Medicines certificate provides students opportunities to learn about the inter-connections of social formations, culture and experience and their implications for clinical and anthropological research. Medical anthropologists distinguish disease (an organic process in the body) from illness (the lived experience of disease). We believe that illness is shaped by the way disease is identified, diagnosed and treated; by which symptoms are meaningful in a particular setting and by the kind of suffering that motivates care; by medical culture, clinical practice, the consequences of disability and the legal right to care; by the distribution of wealth and poverty; by both the intimate and the broad social world.
Certificate Program
The certificate program provides students an introduction to the interdisciplinary context needed to grasp the complexity of the illness experience. Students begin to understand this complexity through attending the biweekly workshops in Cultures, Minds and Medicines over the course of a year, and through taking at least one relevant course outside of their degree-granting program, as approved by the faculty certificate committee. In most cases, non-anthropologists should enroll in a graduate level anthropology course, and anthropologists should enroll in a course in medicine, psychology or some other discipline. This work outside the student’s degree-granting program will facilitate interdisciplinary understanding and foster dialogue between the social and life sciences and the humanities.
Certificate Requirements
Three terms attendance at the Culture. Minds and Medicines Workshop, and one course, (approved by the committee), outside the student’s main department.
Main Workshop
The Cultures, Minds and Medicines workshop involves speakers from Medical Anthropology, Cultural Psychology, and Medicine. Attendance is 25-40 people, and includes students from medicine, anthropology, psychology and a range of other fields. It is a truly eye-opening experience for students to listen to each other speak, sharing different perspectives.
Additional course
Students must take at least one relevant course outside of their degree-granting program, as approved by the faculty certificate committee. In most cases, non-anthropologists should enroll in a graduate level anthropology course, and anthropologists should enroll in a course in medicine, psychology or some other discipline.
Faculty Committee
Angela Garcia (Anthropology)
Lochlann Jain (Anthropology)
Matthew Kohrman (Anthropology)
Tanya Luhrmann (Anthropology), program chair
Hazel Markus (Psychology)
Audrey Shafer (Anesthesia, Bioethics)
Learn more
If you have questions or want to learn more about the program, please contact IRiSS-info@stanford.edu
