Applied Medical Anthropology
"Following the pioneering examples set by Margaret Clark, George Foster, and Perttl Pelto, applied medical anthropologists work, for example, in clinics serving multicultural populations, in maternal and child health programs, on surveys of community responses to environmental hazards, on program planning and evaluation in psychiatric hospitals, on AIDS prevention projects, and on the reintegration of people with traumatic brain injury to community life."
"The populations served are often people on the margins of mainstream soclety-refugees, native peoples, rural elderly, drug addicts, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities. The difference between basic and applied research is that applied medical anthropologists deliberately become advocates for the community and
to do research that is useful and ethical."
(http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf)
It seems as though this is what Anne Fadiman set out to do in researching her book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. She became a deliberate advocate for both the Hmong and medical communities by researching the history of the Hmong and portraying how that history collided with Western medicine.
"The populations served are often people on the margins of mainstream soclety-refugees, native peoples, rural elderly, drug addicts, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities. The difference between basic and applied research is that applied medical anthropologists deliberately become advocates for the community and
to do research that is useful and ethical."
(http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf)
It seems as though this is what Anne Fadiman set out to do in researching her book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. She became a deliberate advocate for both the Hmong and medical communities by researching the history of the Hmong and portraying how that history collided with Western medicine.
Critical Medical Anthropology
"Critical medical anthropology is an adjunct of political economy. This approach analyses biomedical practice and the differentials in power and authoritative knowledge of practitioner and patient. Clinical anthropology has been influenced by Michel Foucault's writings on the historical production of medical knowledge and the notion that the body can become an arena in which social control issues are played out.
(http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf)
I believe the events that transpired in Merced happened at a time where this field was at it's infancy(as previously mentioned). I don't think the medical field had the perspective it does on this topic now to have allowed the medical professionals and Lia's family to have arrived at a different outcome.
References:
Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Farrar, Strauss,
& Giroux: New York
McElroy, A. (2002) . Medical anthropology. Retrieved from: http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf
(http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf)
I believe the events that transpired in Merced happened at a time where this field was at it's infancy(as previously mentioned). I don't think the medical field had the perspective it does on this topic now to have allowed the medical professionals and Lia's family to have arrived at a different outcome.
References:
Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Farrar, Strauss,
& Giroux: New York
McElroy, A. (2002) . Medical anthropology. Retrieved from: http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf