By Erica Prussing
 

​Photo: Katherine Strickland, 2013–14 ICRU Fellow, presents her health-focused anthropology research paper at a conference
 

For over two decades now, medical anthropology has continued to attract graduate and undergraduate students to UI’s Department of Anthropology. As one of the fastest growing topical areas in the discipline today, medical anthropology offers opportunities for cutting-edge theoretical and methodological research, as well as for applied work in a wide variety of settings—from clinical and health services research to leadership and support roles within government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and community-based interest groups. 100% of the department’s PhD students who graduated between 2002 and 2012 with a topical focus in medical anthropology, and who subsequently sought employment, have found jobs in tenure-track academic positions or applied research that directly use their doctoral training.

For much of the past decade, UI’s medical anthropology faculty had primarily offered an upper-division Medical Anthropology course plus a rotating series of advanced topical courses for mixed undergraduate/graduate student audiences. Ellen Lewin also regularly contributed a graduate seminar in Feminist Medical Anthropology. Hires of new Anthropology faculty such as Emily Wentzell, Elana Buch, and Drew Kitchen enabled Erica Prussing to begin teaching a graduate seminar in Medical Anthropology & Social Theory in 2010, to consolidate expanded course offerings into an emphasis area in medical anthropology for undergraduate majors in 2012, and to begin developing a lower-division introductory medical anthropology course for new and potential majors for 2014. While contributing new courses in the evolution of human infectious diseases, Drew Kitchen noticed that a formal track in Anthropology’s major for students entering the health professions would effectively build upon this existing infrastructure. 

Drew developed a preliminary plan with support and input from Russ Ciochon, and the remaining medical anthropology faculty strongly supported the proposal. Emily Wentzell and Elana Buch joined Drew, Erica, and Russ in developing a full proposal for the department. The proposal then went forward to the Educational Policy Committee in December 2013, and received full approval from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to launch in fall 2014.

By completing this undergraduate track as part of a Bachelor of Science degree in Anthropology, students entering the health professions will learn about anthropology’s holistic understandings of how sociocultural and biological factors intersect to shape experiences of health, sickness and healing. This knowledge base will enable students to better understand cultural and biological variation in health and sickness, as well as to examine how and why particular therapeutic interventions may be more or less effective when translated into different cultural settings and disease ecologies. 

Over the past several decades, health professionals have increasingly recognized needs for broader training in order to comprehend how biological and sociopolitical factors combine to variably promote or demote health for both individuals and populations. In medicine, for example, in 2015 the medical college admissions test (MCAT) will begin including a new section on “Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior.” A second new section, “Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills,” will also ask students to analyze excerpts from readings in the social science and humanities. UI undergraduate students with interests not only in medicine but also in pharmacy, physical therapy, dentistry, chiropractic, occupational therapy, optometry, physician assistant, and related fields stand to benefit from anthropological approaches to understanding human health and well-being--not only as they apply to graduate and professional schools, but also in their future experiences as clinicians working with culturally diverse patients and communities.

The track in Anthropology for the Health Professions includes a range of courses taught by both sociocultural and biological anthropology faculty. Faculty members involved in developing this new opportunity hope to help improve the knowledge and skills of future health professionals, while also attracting potential new majors to our department in ways that will benefit all Anthropology faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. Anthropology for the Health Professions joins other significant opportunities for specialization that the department has developed for our undergraduate majors, including emphasis areas in Gender & Culture, Cultural Heritage & Resource Management, Environmental Anthropology, and Medical Anthropology. 

More information about this new track (including sample schedules for majoring in Anthropology developed for pre-medical and pre-physical therapy students), as well as about existing emphasis areas for Anthropology majors, is available at: https://clas.uiowa.edu/anthropology/undergraduate-program/optional-undergraduate-tracks

Erica Prussing is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology. This article originally appeared in the AnthroObserver, the Department of Anthropology's annual newsletter.