Introducing medical anthropology, 2ND Edition(Merrill Singer & Hans Baer) Chapters 3&4 Only - Essay Example

Medical anthropology is a discipline that studies how health, diseases and illness are experienced, shaped and understood with respect to global, historical and political forces. It studies human health and diseases, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation. It does not only study medicine as a scientific field, but also socioeconomic and cultural issues affecting and promoting the administration of medicine. Medical anthropologists study the effects of certain diseases in the society such as stigmatization of people affected with certain diseases.

The field has evolved from simple and cultural treatment practices to the development of modern clinics and hospital to the campaigns on disease prevention (Singer and Hans, 127).Thesis statement The paper will discuss differences in the understanding of health, illness and disease as well as ethnics in medicines. In our daily lives, people confuse the meaning of disease and illness. Indeed a lot of ink and papers have been used to jot down the meaning of the two with the aim of distinguishing the two.

A disease can be defined as a natural entity that can be identified through various bodily signs such as high temperatures and emotional discomfort among others amongst others. An illness, on the other hand, constitutes a cultural construction that can be identified only through interpretive activities and narratives of the signs (Singer and Hans, 93). The distinction between a disease and an illness is through the identification of the signs and symptoms. Diseases and illnesses affect the health of a person or a society in case of an outbreak of a disease.

A society can be called healthy or sick not only because of a disease, but also because of their social behaviors. Thus, health is the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing in absence of a disease or infirmity that promotes life in highest satisfaction Anthropologist studies medicine holistically in terms of modern and cultural medicine used in all social environments. They study the theories of illness and their typologies in order to offer typologies of healing systems (Singer and Hans, 186).

The environment and cultural belief affect the treatment of certain diseases. It is important to encourage patients with unique illness to narrate their experience to healers and medical practitioners to offer understanding of the diseases. Anthropology also acknowledges the importance of cultural treatment because diseases existed before the invention of medicine. The study of chronic diseases which might cause disability to a person in society also helps to understand why people stigmatize others in society.

Anthropology also encourages the use of herbs to treat illness that are known by healers. Medicine has had its fair share of unethical practices. It is exhibited when medical practitioners charging high medical fees or use drugs that has expired to treat patients. These unethical practices hinder the administration of treatment to patients (Singer and Hans, 136). It is also a challenge for some people to reach most people, thus, encouraging use of traditional herbs is encouraged by the anthropologist.

Conclusion The organization of health care systems is complex. It is divided into management part who offers day-to-day running of the hospital and the medical staff who treats patients. The government has also invested in health care to cut the cost of treatment. Most international bodies like UN have invested a lot of money in disease prevention campaigns in order to reduce medical costs.Work CitedSinger, Merrill, and Hans A. Baer. Introducing Medical Anthropology: A Discipline in Action. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press, 2012. Print.