What is medical anthropology?

Medical anthropology is a study on how cultural, ecological, social and historical forces affect medicine used in a particular society and also how these forces affect individual health, health of specific community and environmental stability in the region. In order to achieve accurate conclusions about the role of these forces in medicine and general health, medical anthropology is based on a number of academic disciplines, including cultural anthropology, linguistics, health care and biology. Since the development of medical anthropology in the mid -20th century, the field has developed a specific educational program for medical anthropologists and a set of literature, which all experts in this area must become acquainted. Applications have appeared for medical anthropology that helped change the way in which hospitals and primary health services are introduced into communities and integrate the impact of complex cultural and environmental factors present in the community.

Academic discipline of medical anthropology has appeared as a reaction to the interest of the medical community in Europe and North America to the training of the clinical hospital, which prevailed in the first half of the 20th century. Most doctors and other healthcare workers have abandoned all the recognition of folk medicine and other forms of popular medicine during this time in favor of applying the same standard of medical care, regardless of the community of patients treated by the physician. In the 1840s of the 20th century, European anthropologists and other academics began to publish contributions on a topic that they referred to as "anthropology of health" or "anthropology of medicine". These documents were similar to the philosophical treatise on the role of anthropology in medicine than a clear recommendation to change how the Ajarge community of ajarpéch for patients with patients.

During the 1960s, doctors began to recognize the influence of regional and ethnic forces in health care and began to integrate some of the findings of the early medicineAir anthropologists in their medical practices. The Society for Medical Anthropology was founded in 1967 by a combination of doctors and anthropologists. These experts wanted to cooperate with the aim of applying academic theories and discoveries of medical anthropologists to the care of patients in regions around the world.

In the following decades, medical anthropology has become a formal study of study with a master's degree and doctorates in some of the most respected academic institutions in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Medical anthropologists have led successful educational programs in many countries that inspired possible deinstitutionalization of mental health hospitals and other facilities. In addition, cooperation between anthropologya healthcare professionals have led to the introduction of effective medical programs that focus on improving the quality of life and finding long -term solutions to local health problems rather than simply providing clinical care.