Over the past forty years, the medical landscape of the U.S. has changed in radical ways. All major cities and many rural areas now include not only biomedical resources, but also culturally diverse and often religiously based approaches to healing. In Boston, for example, Vietnamese monk shamans, Haitian mambos and oungans, Episcopalian healing services, Cuban santeros, Puerto Rican espiritistas and Pentacostal faith healers, African American root doctors, Irish charismatic priests, and Chinese herbalist-acupuncturists are all within blocks of each other, and of some of the leading biomedical teaching hospitals in the nation.
The Boston Healing Landscape Project, located in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, has since 2001 been examining how the therapeutic landscape of the U.S. has changed in corresponding ways. This richly textured world of healing represents the new face of culturally and religiously grounded complementary and alternative medicine in America.
Masters Program: Medical Anthropology & Cross Cultural Practices
This graduate program awarded by Boston University School of Medicine is designed to train new generations of interdisciplinary scholars and clinicians to study and engage with the growing cultural and medical pluralism that characterizes the United States, as well as other countries around the world. Coursework goes into depth in both the theories and methods of medical anthropology and cross-cultural practice, while supporting students’ own research interests and career goals.
We at the Boston Healing Landscape Project are pleased to announce our new Islam and Health section, developed by Dr. Lance Laird. This section was developed for healthcare providers, to address the specific needs and backgrounds of different Muslim communities. It includes a general background and guide, bibliography, references, and links to more in-depth and helpful information.
A new report released today by Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, prepared by Dr. Lance Laird and Dr.
Wendy Cadge, outlines how Muslim community-based health organizations
(MCBHOs) are providing a critical safety net in health care access for the
most underserved communities in America. The first-of-its-kind study, titled
"Caring for Our Neighbors", provides a deeper understanding of the
motivations that drive American-Muslim health providers, the demographic
makeup of the populations they serve and the clinics' growing role in
American public health and community building.
Boston Globe: Doctors learn of religious remedies
The Boston Healing Landscape Project provides resources about minority and immigrant religious and cultural traditions in order to educate the local medical community on how alternate beliefs might affect treatment strategies.
Plants from many healing landscapes: gathering information and teaching clinicians about the cultural use of medicinal herbs
The increasingly diverse US population, the growing use of medicinal herbs, and the necessity for training in cultural competence have created a need for related educational opportunities for health care professionals. To address these concerns, the Boston Healing Landscape Project (BHLP), the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Treadwell Library of the Massachusetts General Hospital, offered a postgraduate education program, “Cultural Use of Herbs in Latino and Haitian Communities—Herbal Tour.”
Ford Foundation: Listening to Obatalá by Christopher Reardon
Traditional healers in Boston have been finding acceptance where they least expected it: among doctors and scholars at one of the city's finest teaching hospitals.
