Very few Practising Physicians are also Medical Anthropologists, this applies to the entire world. In the USA, there are excellent Medical Anthropologists but the majority of them are not physicians with the exception of Arthur Kleinman and Paul Farmer, both at Harvard. Didier Fassin is French, Jim Yong Kim served as the head of the World Bank, Jean Benoist i French, Egyptian born Tobie Nathan is a French Ethno Psychiatrist, Maurice Eisenberg is in Melbourne, Michael Taussig is an australian located in the USA like his fellow Australian is a Psychiatrist in addition to being an anthropologist. Psychiatry lends itself to study of Anthropology, both concerned with the thinking process of an individual in the context of the society they live in.
My late teacher, Dr Cecil Helman was both a Physician and an Anthropologist, was a South African based in London. I asked him once, why are there so many jews in the field of Anthropology, and I remember his answer very succinctly: We are the eternal other.
Paul Farmer is neither a Jew nor a Psychiatrist but has had an impressive career in Global Health for the past 30 odd years and has contributed to the knowledge of Medical Anthropology.
During my lectures at the University of Havana, one question often asked by the postgraduate students is: How is Anthropology different from Sociology. It gave me delight to explain that Anthropology creates knowledge whereas Sociology arranges the already known knowledge. Perhaps that is why Anthropology is not popular in totalitarian societies or in those with no thirst for knowledge. The Universities in Asia loathe to introduce courses in Anthropology as the emphasis is on knowledge as a commodity in many cases.
When I was reading Anthropology in London, we had more than occasion to discuss the work of Paul Farmer. He also wrote the best definition of what is Medical Anthropology, as many epidemiologists saunter around as Anthropologists.
I will summarize his words:Medical Anthropology teaches you to divert your gaze from the sterility of the Epidemiologists and Clinicians (pardon the pun) and go beyond facts and figures and transcend to the level of the suffering and focus on the society in which the patient lives.
He is one of the founders of Partners in Health
(one of the others was the medical anthropologist head of World Bank, Dr Kim)
When Dr. Paul Farmer learned that he would receive a million-dollar award for his work, he was a bit ... baffled. He is a Harvard Medical School professor, medical anthropologist and co-founder of Partners In Health, an organization whose mission is to bring modern medical care to those in need around the world. But the words "medicine" or "health" do not appear in the award, announced Dec. 16. It is the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. "I was a little shocked to get a prize with the word 'philosophy,'" he says.
And yet it's apt, says Nicolas Berggruen, real estate investor and founder of the private equity firm Berggruen Holdings. He founded the Berggruen Institute that awarded the prize to Farmer. "We have a simple idea. It is to reward somebody who is developing new thinking to help society evolve," he says.
Just a small piece of the interview:
In a 2011 address to Harvard students, you talked about a key element of your philosophy of care that you call "accompaniment." You said, "There's an element of mystery and openness in accompaniment: I'll keep you company and share your fate for a while. And not just a little while." The promise to stick with patients through thick and thin seems basic but highly neglected in most medical settings. What does "accompaniment" mean to you in a health-care setting?
I'm an infectious disease specialist. I work in hospitals, in ICUs. But that's just a tiny fraction of what's needed. When people are unable to make choices — if they're in prison, or refugee camps or are impoverished — they're less able to adhere to a treatment. They need help outside the hospital or clinic. In Haiti, community health workers are called accompagnateurs, which means people who accompany. The community health workers do what your mother does for you when you're sick and stay at home. She stays with you, she accompanies you. Accompaniment means: I'll go with you and support you on your journey wherever it leads. I'll keep you company.
I am extremely happy for Dr Paul Farmer and very humbly proud that I am also a Physician-Anthropologist, who to this day does not have an office or secretary!
A close friend of mine from Brasil send this to me :
OBRIGADO.
