Courses

• GMS MA 626: Native Health, Healing and Medicine, and Contemporary Practices
  This course examines Native American and Alaskan Native health conditions and associated systems of healing. Students will investigate historical and contemporary Native perspectives of illness, disease, and wellness. Emphasis will be placed on the sociocultural impact of national and local health policies upon Native physical, social, emotional, and spiritual bodies. A major facet of the class will be the design and implementation of a research partnership with a local tribal health organization in order to conduct an applied medical anthropology project. Readings will draw on medical anthropology ethnographic, Public Health, epidemiologic, biomedical, nursing, and Native studies. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 630: Medical Anthropology and the Cultures of Biomedicine
  This course examines biomedicine as a cultural system with multiple local and national variations worldwide, all of which have undergone changes over time. Topics will include the exploration of biomedicine as a cultural system, with cultural variations and different conceptual domains; processes of acculturation to biomedicine the medicalization of social realities; biomedical narratives; the patient-doctor relationship (including when the physician is the patient); understandings of interventions and the meanings assigned to them; and different ways of thinking about efficacy in relation to process and chronicity. The course will draw on ethnographic studies of biomedicine not only in the United States, but in other international settings. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 640: The Cultural Formation of the Clinician: Its Implications for Practice
  This course will provide a context for exploring and reflecting on one's own cultural formation in relation to such topics as gender, sexual orientation, race, class, religion, body size, and other areas where there are the greatest risks for health disparities through unexamined bias. The course examines the values one brings into one's practice as a care provider, and how the interaction of both influence one's personal and professional life, including responses to diverse patient cultures. Offered through M.A. program in Medical Anthropology. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 650: Society, Healthcare, and the Cultures of Competence
  This course examines the history and current policies of health education, beginning with the notion of "competencies" as a basis for biomedical training and the development of a model that has been exported to other fields. Focuses on the conceptual formation of key "professional competencies" in medicine, acupuncture, and pastoral care. Readings include autobiographical accounts of medical students, physicians, chaplains, and acupuncturists. Offered through MA program in Medical Anthropology. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 677: Topics in Medical Anthropology
  This seminar develops a critique of topics in medical anthropology theory. It revisits significant legacies from classic anthropology, joining them with insights from current theory and ethnography, to analyze selected issues in medical anthropology. The topic for 2014 is Reproductive Anthropology. Reproductive Anthropology encompasses all aspects of reproduction; sexuality, fertility, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, birthing, breastfeeding, menopause, sexual health including the health needs of LGBTQ communities, assisted reproductive technologies, masculinity, male infertility, the provision of reproductive health care in and across various health care settings and in varying sociocultural and political-economic contexts locally, nationally, and internationally, and many other topics. Any issue, practice, illness, trend, or debate that combines human behavior and reproductive health or ability is fertile ground for anthropological examination. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 680: Culture, Migration, and Mental Health
  This medical anthropology course explores the ways in which mental health and illness are constructed by and for those who migrate across national, cultural, and other borders. We will examine the historical development of the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and social work in the context of Western societies, in parallel with the anthropological study of ritual, violence, ecstatic and possession experiences in non-Western societies. We will then explore debates in cross-cultural mental health care that bring these historical disciplines into dialogue, particularly in the context of programs for the treatment of refugee and immigrant mental health. The intersection of political, economic, religious, and gender issues in the construction of mental health will also be considered. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 682: Islamic Medicine and Healing
  Explores the social history of medicine and healing traditions among Muslims: the role of the Prophet Muhammad as model and source of health and medicine; the emergence of classical Islamic medicine as synthesis of and innovation on Greek traditions; the influence of legal/moral traditions in regulating and preserving public health; the development of hospitals in the Muslim world; the influence of Sufi philosophy, practices, and the proliferation of shrines on healing traditions; the effects of emerging biomedical practice introduced from the West; the "revival" of Islamic medicine, and the emergence of alternative medicines. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 684: Social History of Chinese Medicine and Healing Traditions
  Explores intersections between the therapeutic, the medical, and the religious, through the study of healing traditions in China. Includes the role of shamans and the persistence of traditions involving gods, ghosts, and ancestors; the emergence of classical medicine and canonical texts, together with the role played by Scholar- Physicians; the influences of Daoist approaches to healing, longevity, and alchemy; the introduction of Buddhist and Indian healing practices; the effects of an emerging biomedical practice brought in from the West; and the meanings of the revival of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the People's Republic of China. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 691: Directed Study in Medical Anthropology
  Var cr, Fall & SSI sem.
• GMS MA 692: Directed Study in Medical Anthropology
  Var cr, Spring & SSII sem.
• GMS MA 700: History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part I)
  This course introduces the history of the field of medical anthropology and of theoretical orientations related to understanding and analyzing health and medicine in society and culture. Readings will exemplify interpretive strategies applied to health-related experiences, discourse, knowledge, and practice. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 701: History and Theory of Medical Anthropology (Part II)
  This course will address theoretical traditions in medical anthropology, focusing on orientations developed and applied within the field over the past two decades to interpretations of health-related phenomena. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 710: Medical Anthropology and Qualitative Research Methods and Design
  Introduction to methodology for ethnographic field research in medical anthropology, and qualitative research methods. This course examines issues in designing anthropological research, and reviews theoretical approaches to research ethics, designing research, framing questions and questionnaire design, and data collection techniques. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 742: Medical Anthropological and Qualitative Data Analysis
  Examines strategies for analyzing anthropological data deriving from interviews and documents. In addition to reviewing different coding strategies and the rationales underlying them, the course will discuss topics such as approaches to managing textual data; the selection and application of epistemological and theoretical frameworks; narrative and discourse analysis; cognitive anthropology theory and methods; the use of grounded theory. Emphasizes the application of these strategies to the analysis and interpretation of data collected by the students as part of the course process. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 770: IRB Proposal Development and Writing
  Students will learn to write a medical anthropology research proposal and related Institutional Review Board Proposal, through the structure provided by the IRB of BUSM. We will address theory and methods related to the design and review process. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 786: Final Project Writing Seminar
  This seminar will train learners in the theory and practice of writing up medical anthropology research findings, and of writing ethnography. The course emphasizes analytical writing. Students will learn to identify and employ rhetorical and stylistic strategies and genre conventions. The class is structured as a seminar, emphasizing class discussion, workshops and peer-group work. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MH 701: Counseling Theory
  This course provides an overview of major theoretical approaches to case conceptualization for clinical mental health counseling, including psychoanalytic, person-centered, cognitive-behavioral, and solution-focused theories. Students will begin to develop an understanding of the process for selecting appropriate clinical mental health counseling interventions, consistent with current research standards. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MH 702: Professional Orientation & Ethics
  This course provides an overview of professional ethics governing the field of clinical mental health counseling, to include ethical decision-making, confidentiality and informed consent, competence and supervision, malpractice, self-care, and medical ethics. The course includes a careful review of the American Counseling Association and American Mental Health Counselors Association Codes of Ethics. The emphasis of the course is on application of ethical principles to ethical dilemmas commonly encountered in the field of clinical mental health counseling. 3 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MH 703: Counseling Techniques
  This course provides an overview of the skills and styles needed for building healthy and therapeutic helping relationships, as well as techniques specific to a variety of psychological disorders and problems with living. Emphasis is placed on experiential exercises and clinical mental health counseling-related skills-building, including interviewing and behaviors influencing the helping process. 3 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MH 704: Group Work Dynamics & Process
  This course provides an overview of the basic principles of group counseling including the conception and design of group interventions, group dynamics and components, facilitation approaches, methods for recruiting and intervening with group members, and modalities through which groups are often conducted (i.e. psychodynamic, behavioral, support groups, and skills-based groups for special populations). 3 cr, Fall sem.

Back to full list of Division of Graduate Medical Sciences