Culture and Medicine

“Thus the dilemma: how is the state to protect its citizens while retaining for itself the role of arbiter of who benefits from its potential profitability,” (Vicanne p. 668).

This quote from the Vincanne article stood out to me because it spoke to a new dimension of the interface of spiritual and medical healing that I had not thought of before: that of their differential profits. This article focuses on the manipulation of medicine (whether spiritual or biological) to capitalize on potential profits. This is a surprising departure from the angle I have previously learned about this conflict.

Having taken several medical anthropology classes, I have learned of many examples of cultural beliefs dictating medical care, often in ways that are not congruent with, or even contrary to, what is considered correct care by biologically, medically, trained doctors. These potential conflicts are often the source of anxiety in the minds of anthropologists, as reconciling what is seen as foreign medicinal practice, with familiar, comfortable, cultural practices, tends to lead to further health complications and problems. My most frequented example of this is in maternal health; beliefs about conception, childbearing, and delivery are strikingly different between cultures. This is a particular concern because of the time-sensitive nature of parturition; consulting a midwife who is educated in cultural tradition, but not in the biological and physical aspect of childbirth may help calm a distressed mother-to-be in labour, but if the mother-to-be is in need of true medical, and even surgical, intervention, this visit is essentially wasting time and risking her own life.

With this as my background of understanding in terms of aligning cultural and biological medicinal practice, it seems so trivial to me that there is so much contention concerning the profitability of certain medicines. The “ownership of medical knowledge”, should indeed be steeped in truth, but this truth need not be dictated by financial motivation (Vicanne p. 659). Instead this “knowledge” should focus on optimizing care for all clients, and this optimization should involve a happy marriage between cultural beliefs and medical health and safety.