Courses

• GMS IM 700: Thesis Research I
  First phase of a four-semester directed research project, the MBI project in the field, select a faculty member in the greater Boston area who will agree to serve as an thesis advisor, identify a line if research and define the specific objectives of a project to be conducted in the following three semesters. 2 cr
• GMS IM 701: Sectional Anatomy for Imaging Professionals
  Imaging techniques such as computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have seen rapid rates of growth in the past years. It is vital that professionals working with these imaging tools have a strong working knowledge of gross anatomy to understand the images they are looking at. This course is designed to give students in the Masters in Bioimaging program the fundamental knowledge they will need of gross anatomy. The course is taught from medical images such as CT and MRI rather than more traditional methods since this is the source of information the MBI students are expected to encounter in their future. 2 cr, Fall & Spring sem.
• GMS IM 705: Clinical and MR Pathophysiology
  This course familiarizes the student with common pathologies found in magnetic resonance imaging and the appearance of these pathologies in various imaging protocols and the imaging appearance of a variety of pathological aberrations affecting patients. The knowledge of disease processes and their signal characteristics on various imaging sequences is essential to ensure the best practices in patient care and quality imaging. This course will include a high level review of clinical imaging in various disease states. Lectures are geared toward a practical, problem-solving approach to conditions and a systematic approach to interpretation of diagnostic imaging studies will be utilized. 4 cr
• GMS IM 730: Thesis Research III
  Third phase of a four-semester thesis project in the field of bioimaging during which students finish data analysis and primarily concentrate on writing a comprehensive technical report describing in detail their work in Phases I and II. 2 cr
• GMS IM 791: Clinical Internship I
  This course is the first of two structured clinical internship courses designed to provide students with clinical practice and patient management training. Student progression in competency levels through clinical performance objectives are accomplished through demonstration and observation, after which the student assists in performing specified clinical activities. When a satisfactory degree of proficiency is apparent, the student performs specific activities under supervision to achieve clinical competency specified under Article II of the American Registry Radiological Technologists (ARRT) Rules and Regulations. 4 cr
• GMS IM 792: Clinical Internship II
  This course is the second of two structural clinical internship courses designed to provide students with clinical practice and patient management training. Student progression in competency levels through clinical performance objectives are accomplished through demonstration and observation, after which the student assists in performing specified clinical activities. When a satisfactory degree of proficiency is apparent, the student performs specific activities under supervision to achieve clinical competency specified under Article II of the American Registry Radiological Technologists (ARRT) Rules and Regulations. 4 cr
• GMS MA 605: Pluralism and Healing in the United States: A History
  This course explores the history of therapeutic pluralism in the United States, beginning with the colonial period and continuing to the present. We will examine how this therapeutic pluralism necessarily includes the story of American religious pluralism, the rise of biomedicine, and the changing faces of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), while factoring in the roles of class, race, and gender. We will work with primary source materials, as well as sources from history of medicine, and medical anthropology. 4 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 620: World Religions and Healing
  An introduction to approaches to healing integral to Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, African, African-descended, Latin American, Chinese, Native American traditions, and to some of the outcomes of their interactions, in relation to the experience of affliction and suffering. Draws on source materials from history, religious studies, and medical anthropology. 4 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS MA 622: Religion, Culture and Public Health
  This medical anthropology course will explore relationships between religion, culture, and health in the context of public health projects. We will examine historical developments, examples of faith-based public health organizations, and current research on "religious health assets," both locally and internationally. Students will design and conduct qualitative research projects on the culture of a faith-based organization. 3 cr, Fall 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. This course focuses on the conceptual formation of key "professional competencies" in medicine, acupuncture, and chaplaincy and explores the meanings of "cultural competence." 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 2015 is Syndemics. The term syndemics points to the determinant importance of social conditions in disease concentrations, interactions, and health consequences. In syndemics, the interaction of diseases or other adverse health conditions commonly arises because of adverse social conditions (e.g., poverty, exploitative, stigmatization, oppressive social relationships) that put socially devalued groups at heightened risk. 3 cr, Spring sem. T,Th 11-12:20
• 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, Spring sem.
• GMS MA 682: Islamic Medicines and Healing
  Explores the social history of medicine and healing traditions among diverse Muslim cultures: 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 ethnographic accounts of healing traditions in diverse cultural contexts. 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.

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