From: "DR. PHUA KAI LIT" <phuakl@sit.edu.my>
To: MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 12:17:05 +0000
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Subject: Re: Help with last-minute course assignment
Cc: bbennett@goucher.edu
Message-Id: <1957D907E48@pmail.sit.edu.my>
I would suggest Peter Conrad's 
"Sociology of Health and Illness".

Interesting concepts are the 
"medicalization" of social problems
and medicine as a form of
"social control".


Date:          Thu, 25 Dec 1997 20:56:34 -0500
Reply-to:      MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu
From:          Beverly Bennett <bbennett@goucher.edu>
To:            MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY   <MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject:       Help with last-minute course assignment
X-To:          "'MEDSOC@csf.colorado.edu'" <MEDSOC@csf.colorado.edu>

I've just been asked to teach a course in medical sociology starting in
January and would be very grateful for assistance.  My experience has
been as a medical anthropologist; and my doctoral research was on health
status, experiences of illness, and the utilization of diverse systems
of medicine among indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon.  I've taught
several courses in medical anthropology, as well as general sociology;
and I do feel qualified to teach this new course.  However, I'm not sure
there is time to order the handbook on this from the ASA, at least
certainly not before I need to turn in a book order!  Therefore your
suggestions would be most helpful.

I envision a substantial portion of the course as focusing on health
care in the U.S. today.  I am considering also including emphases on
three other subjects, partly because they would contextualize the U.S.
system and partly in order to play to my own strengths:
	(1) the history of health, illness, and medicine
	(2) different approaches to health, illness, and medicine,
including especially different subgroups within the U.S., both
traditional approaches of different regional and ethnic groups and the
newer attention to acupuncture and other so-called alternative medicines
	(3) different health care systems around the world, such as
those of Canada, the UK, Japan, Cuba.

Searching the Web, I found Prentice Hall's list of medical sociology
texts, several of which look interesting.  Could anyone comment on
Gallagher's Global Perspectives on Health Care; Freund & McGuire's
Health, Illness, and the Social Body; or Cockerham's Medical Sociology?
Are there other publishers that have a number of texts in this field?

Three other books that seem potentially useful are Sontag's Illness as
Metaphor; Perrone et al's Medicine Women, Curanderas, and Women
Doctors;and Hand's Magical Medicine.  Any comments?

Any and all suggestions would be much appreciated.  At this point books
are a priority, but I'd be delighted to hear other ideas or referrals to
sources.

Thank you so much!  And best wishes for the holidays to all!

Sincerely,
Beverly Bennett
Goucher College